Abhra Mondal

Calcutta: A makeshift East Bengal side fought hard to beat George Telegraph 2-1 on Thursday at the Salt Lake Stadium in their Sahara CFL Premier Division clash.

Going by East Bengal’s indifferent form, pundits had labelled Raghu Nandy’s creative and attacking outfit as favourites going into Thursday’s match. Manoranjan Bhattacharjee, missing Alvito D’Cunha and Edmilson Marquez was forced to field six defensive-minded players with Suleh Musah playing as a midfielder and Saumik Dey donning the role of a left winger.

It was Saumik who fired the red and golds into the lead in the 32nd minute, with a right-footer after Deb Kumar Sashmal failed to clear Ashim’s cross from the far-left. East Bengal could have doubled their lead at the stroke of halftime but Parveen Kumar failed to connect his head to a cross.

Ashim Biswas’s pace troubled the George Telegraph defence consistently and the striker was rewarded in the 52nd minute when he earned a penalty for his side. George Telegraph keeper Swarup Das brought Ashim down after the striker beat him with a cute lob and was on the verge of scoring. Musah stepped up and scored from the spot, aided by a lucky deflection of the goal post and the keeper.

TEAMS

East Bengal: Abhra Mondal, Nirmal Chhetri, M Suresh (Jayanta Sen 76), Khelemba Singh, Anupam Sarkar, Saumik Dey, Suley Musah, Mehtab Hossain (Saikat Saha Roy 69), Chhangte Malsawmkima, Parveen Kumar (Goutam Kujur 89), Ashim Biswas.

George Telegraph: Swarup Das, Suman Dey, Safar Sardar, Deb Kumar Sashmal, Biswajit Saha, Suva Kumar, Gopal Debnath, Pradip Roy (Hauson Pau 82), Beokhokhei (Mithun Saha 85), Dipendu Biswas (Freebone Ipekere, 28), Maduako Francis.

Referee: Kashinath Sen

Man of the Match: Abhra Mondal