WR hold fort against Mahindras’ onslaught

Mahindras now have eight points from six matches and stay in fourth place, while WR have five from as many matches. Both have one more match to play in the first phase. Air-India lead the tally with 11 points from five matches.The honours were even, literally. While Mahindras dominated the first half and had some scoring opportunities in the second half too, it was WR who shone in the second half.

WR concentrated on saving the match and their strike force seemed blunted with strikers Siraj Hussain and Kaushik Pal well marked. Hussain, who had scored the winner on Thursday against Maharashtra State Police, seemed dazed in the first half. But he made amends in the second with some forceful thrusts.

Mahindras defender Paras Choudhary stuck to Pal like glue. But Pal finally managed to break the shackles in the 60th minute with a brilliant solo. He left Mahindras defenders cold with some skillful footwork and his perfect cross to Sunil Mishra was missed by the latter in front of the goal.

But the game more or less belonged to the more fancied Mahindras. They attacked relentlessly but strangely seemed to lose direction midway.

Mahindras’ Khalid Siddique started strongly and imaginatively. His through ball in the 13th minute to R Kasui was a gem but Abhay Kumar missed a header on Kasui’s cross. That was not the only opportunity Abhay missed.

In the 65th minute, the industrious Ramesh Razak sent in a corner straight to Abhay who headed into goalkeeper Abdul Majeed’s hands.

Abhay combined well with Herbert Philip substitute for M Candid and the two created some excellent opportunities.

In the 73rd minute, Philip headed Abhay’s perfect cross, but was miraculously saved by defender Suresh Mate while goalkeeper Abdul Majeed was nowhere in position.

Abhay’s, and indeed Mahindras’ best chance, came in the 87th minute when Philip’s hard work on the right was nullified by the former who missed the ball completely in front of the goal.

Andrew Lewis had already taken the first step towards muffing chances for Mahindras in the 64th minute. A sudden burst by Rehmatullah was wasted when Lewis shot over the bar in front of an open goal.

GMSC beat Good Shepherd

Earlier, Leonard Koli scored through a penalty to seal GM Sports Club’s 3-1 win over Good Shepherd in a first division encounter. Sydney Mascarenhas and Vinayak Gande were the other scorers for the winners, while Sudarshan Shetty got the consolation goal for Good Shepherd.