East Bengal captain Dipankar Roy leaves Ever-Ready defenders in his wake at home on Sunday. Picture by Gautam Bose

Calcutta: A sense of apprehension always goes into characterising the season-opener. Predictably, East Bengal started and ended their CFL Premier Division opener in an apprehensive mode, but there was more pain and less pleasure in their stepping into a new life.

Their goalless draw agai-nst Ever-Ready Sunday cou-ld easily be a throwback on how the red-and-golds had left the trail of a hattrick of titles ? a 1-2 defeat to Ever-Ready.

Much water has flown down the river Bhagirathi since that defeat at the Barasat Stadium on December 10. The CFL Super Division has got a new eight-team look and new name ? Premier Division.

Talking about changes, East Bengal took to the home field on Sunday in a new jersey ? predominantly red with sprinkles of gold here and there. And how such little variations in colour combination could depict the canvas of a performance!

The sellout stadium certainly saw red at the way Dipankar Roy & Co. were trudging along ? sometimes doddering, as if without motive and sometimes insipid without intellect ? certainly not the golden standard of a team like the red-and-gold brigade.

The pre-season hangover was very much visible in them ? the way Arun Malhotra and Covan Lawrence were found wanting in communicating with each other, the way Surya Bikash Chakraborty was ending up receiving a ball awkwardly (on most occasions the ball went to a rival player), the way R.C. Prakash and K. Kulothungan were roaming without purpose up front.

Then a came a move ? a right-wing cross from Covan to be precise ? and Prakash should have led it to a more meaningful destination than fumbling in controlling it. But that was typical of a ploy big teams tend to employ in winning a contest in the local league. Crosses from the flanks, keeping the rival defence on tenterhooks and hoping their forwards to do something out of these in grounds where the rival custodians could even hear each other’s breathings.

This was conspicuously absent in the East Bengal strategy. Or, even if the intentions were there, such moves were nipped in the bud by aimless runs and a plethora of mispasses in key moments. Whatever Subhas Bhowmick, watching the match from the stands, intended to pass on to his assistant Bikash Panji on the bench, it was not reflected in his wards. No wonder he should also be seeing red at it.

Jatin Bist’s arrival towards the end of first-half stoked up the pressure on Ever-Ready and East Bengal earned as ma-ny as seven corners in the second session. But off one of such corners came an Ever-Ready countermove that nearly killed the home team.

Surya Bikash fumbled as Sheikh Habib Ali burst ahead. A one-two with Jamir Ali Mondal helped him get past sole challenger Malhotra han-ds down and with Nasim Akhtar standing helplessly, the Ever-Ready striker hit straight at him.

East Bengal replied with a move that saw Prakash apparently tripped inside the box, but referee Jayanta Sarkar wa-ved play-on. That was East Bengal going as close as they could to the rival territory. And what was served up in between could be occasionally glittering, but certainly not the gold.

TEAMS

East Bengal: Nasim Akhtar; Surya Bikash Chakraborty, Co-van Lawrence, Debkumar Sasmal (Jatin Bist 35), Arun Malhotra; Souvik Dey, Dipankar Roy, Sandip Das, Gouranga Dutta (Jayanta Sen 74); K. Kulothungan (Tushar Rakshit 61), R.C. Prakash.

Ever-Ready: Shibram Dey; Mu-zaffar Rahman (Manoj Joshi 76), Surajit Chakraborty, Anupam Sarkar, Bimal Sarkar, Rat-an Das, Dhiman Sinha, Sujit Neogi, Lalkamal Bhowmick (Subrata Guha 69), Sheikh Habib Ali, Jamir Ali Mondal.

Referee: Jayanta Sarkar.