Edmilson at Salt Lake Stadium on Monday. A Telegraph picture

Calcutta: Federation Cup champions East Bengal overwhelmed Calcutta Port Trust (CPT) 5-0, in their opening encounter of the second leg Sahara CFL Premier Division at the Salt Lake Stadium on Monday.

Riding a brilliant hattrick by their Brazilian forward Edmilson Marques, the red-and-golden brigade marched past the CPT quite comfortably. Edmilson, who could have easily scored another couple, finished with four. With 10 goals to his credit in the Premier Divsion, Edmilson on Monday edged past Mohun Bagan skipper — and fellow country man — Jose Ramirez Barreto to lead the table.

The match, scheduled for Friday, was called off, after high tide flooded portions of the East Bengal ground.

Resuming with the same spark, which earned them their fifth Federation Cup title, East Bengal shot into the lead in the third minute of the match via Dipankar Roy.

Chesting an Alvito D’Cunha free-kick from the edge of the top box, Edmilson set it up for Dipankar. Coach Amal Dutta’s men appeared clueless against the aggressive game plan deployed by his East Bengal counterpart Subrata Bhattacharya.

Having taken the lead, East Bengal pierced through the weak CPT defence. Edmilson’s quest for goal was clear from his body language.

First, a Dipankar Roy shot went over the target in the 24th minute. Eight minutes later, a powerful Edmilson left-footer too was well thwarted by a Rabindranath Karmakar header.

The Brazilian opened his account, netting his first goal in the 34th minute from an Ashim Biswas pass from the left. Three minutes later, grabbing a Saumik Dey cross from the left, Edmilson, rolled it past the CPT custodian Amar Deb.

After the change of ends, the Brazilian did no mistake to convert the penalty, awarded when Pradeep Tiwary tackled him down inside the box in the 61st minute. And in the 82nd minute, his fourth one from a Dipendu Biswas pass.

Sujit Dey failed to convert a penalty in the 62nd minute of the match when he was fouled inside the East Bengal box. That was CPT’s solitary chance of the day.

After the day’s encounter, East Bengal now have 19 points from eight outings while CPT are on seven from nine.

TEAMS

East Bengal: Gopal Das, Aibor Khongjee, Majek Bolaji, Madhab Das, Saumik Dey, Dipankar Roy, Jayanta Sen, Mehtab Hossain (Vanlal Rova 56’), Alvito D’ Cunha (Hardeep Singh Saini 24’), Ashim Biswas (Dipendu Biswas 62’), Edmilson Marques.

CPT: Amar Deb, Anusree Borah, Biswajit Kumar, Rabindranath Karmakar (Pradip Karmakar 19), Prasanta Sarkar, Swarup Dey, Sanjit Saha, Dipak Dalui, Kousik Prasad, Nnajiuba Collins Eje, Sujit Dey.

Referee: Biplab Poddar