Action during the Bengal-Maharashtra Santosh Trophy match in Srinagar on Tuesday. (PTI)

Srinagar: Bengal struggled into the semi-finals of the Santosh Trophy, securing a 1-1 draw with Maharashtra in a concluding group B match at the Bakshi Stadium on Tuesday.

Bengal, with five points, made the knockout rounds as the group runners-up behind Karnataka, who shocked six-time champions Goa 1-0 in the day’s first outing.

In the first semi-final to be played on Thursday, Bengal will take on group A champions Services, the only team in the quarter final league to win all their matches. Next day, Karnataka would cross swords with defending champions Punjab.

Karnataka entered the last-four stage after 15 years owing to a fine strike by captain Xavier Vijay Kumar in the 54th minute. He has now scored in all three quarter final league matches.

Placed in a situation where even a 0-2 defeat would be enough to go through to the semi-finals, Bengal appeared complacent. They conceded the lead in the 41st minute and allowed their opponents to take charge.

After the fluent 4-1 victory over Karnataka the other day, Bengal made three changes. But none of coach Krishnendu Roy’s three newcomers clicked.

Defence was Bengal’s weakest link. Arnab Mondal, who replaced Habibur Rehman, wasn’t at his best and Roy was forced to bring on Habibur in the 63rd minute. Till then the Bengal defence was being regularly raided by Maharashtra.

Soccor Velho was the pick of the lot among Maharashtra forwards. Short in stature but gifted with great speed, he was the man who did most of the damage. He finally struck four minutes before the half time when Paresh Shivalkar put him through with a long ball. He slotted in with a clever volley that had two stopper backs — Mondal and Kingshuk Debnath — and goalkeeper Somnath Khara all at sea.

Bengal did come up with the equaliser in the 60th minute but one could clearly see the panic-stricken faces at the Bengal bench. A normally calm Bengal coach was seen shouting instructions once too often that forced the fourth official to ask him to stay within the technical area.

The entire Bengal bench heaved a sigh of relief when skipper Jayanta Sen drew parity with a low angular right footer from five yards outside the box. This was the period when Bengal pressed hard and missed at least four chances.

TEAMS

Bengal: Somnath Khara; Bijoy Basfore, Kingshuk Debnath, Arnab Mondal (Habibur Rehman, 63rd) and Debabrata Roy; Jayanta Sen, Gauranga Dutta, Lalkamal Bhowmick (Tarif Ahmed, 82nd) and Snehashish Chakrabarty; Shankar Oraon (Asim Das 37th) and Syed Rahim Nabi.

Maharashtra: Kunal Sawant; Krishna Shirodkar, Rauf Khan (Amandeep Singh 87th), Nepolean Singh and Amritpal Singh; Hemant Singh, (Prakash Patil, 76th), Surojit Roy (H Thomte 62nd), Paresh Shivalkar and Souvaid Ansari; Soccor Velho and Kailash Patil.

Referee: Deepak Bisht (Delhi).