Calcutta: A bungling goalkeeper and a weak defence saw Mohun Bagan suffer a humiliating defeat at the hands of ONGC in a 23rd round I-League match, here on Sunday. Although Surkumar Singh gave Bagan the lead in the fourth minute, ONGC’s Kailash Patil struck a brace within a span of five minutes deep into the second half to hand ONGC a wonderful victory.
Bagan started off well with clever short passing and quick movements off both the flanks. In the third minute, Bagan got the first shot at the goal through Surkumar, which was punched off by ONGC goalkeeper Bilifang Narzary. The indomitable Surkumar did not lose heart as he struck a strong left-footer in the next minute, which bounced in front of Narzary before finding the net.
The Calcutta side got another chance to augment their lead in the 28th minute when a Snehashish Chakraborty shot, coming off a good movement involving him and Dhanarajan, missed the target by a few inches. Bagan were all over their opponents till this stage, while ONGC’s attack mainly depended on set pieces. However, with ONGC’s movements lacking the finishing touches, Bagan gradually switched on into a defensive mode.
Although, in hindsight, this move by Bagan technical director Subhash Bhowmick might have been a masterstroke (as Bagan did not have a proper strike-force), but it was well intercepted by his counterpart Subrata (Patla) Bhattacharya while going into the break.
ONGC could have easily got the equaliser in the 51st minute if the post did not come between a Robin Gurung shot. But they had to wait till the 79th minute when a horrible mistake from Sangram resulted a shot from Patil into the open net.
Anwar back-passed a ball to Sangram from the left who tried to guard the ball with a second-touch instead of clearing it from the outset. He lost control of the ball and a lurking Patil did not fail to put the ball into the open net. Incidentally, this was Patil’s first touch as he came as a replacement for Katsumi Yusa in the previous minute.
Man of the Match Patil scored again six minutes before close when he brilliantly controlled a midfield lob from Jatin Bisht and surged forward. While Kingshuk Debnath and Surkumar converged on the midfielder, Patil intelligently side-stepped both before striking the ball past an outstretched Sangram.
After the match, irate fans vented their dissent on the Bagan team bus and Mondal’s car was also attacked. Later a Bagan official said that “unless security is beefed up for the players in the next match, they would not play in future.”
The Calcutta side remain stranded on 27 points and dropped to seventh in the table while ONGC lifted themselves to 12th and can now dream of avoiding relegation.
