Syed Rahim Nabi after scoring the matchwinner for East Bengal at the Salt Lake Stadium on Sunday. Picture by Santosh Ghosh

Calcutta: East Bengal escaped to victory while Mohammedan Sporting were left ruing what might have been. That, in a nutshell, is the story of Sunday’s CFL Premier Division clash at the Salt Lake Stadium played in the presence of a 50,000-plus audience at the Salt Lake Stadium.

It was Syed Rahim Nabi who saved East Bengal the blushes with a double-strike in the final 17 minutes. He put finishing touches to a Saumik Dey pass to neutralise a brilliant 33rd-minute Suman Dutta goal.

Then, in the final minute, Nabi saw his optimistic right-footer roll in off the hands of goalkeeper Gopal Das, who had let the balls bounce of his chest twice earlier.

A team with not a single big name, Mohammedan Sporting not only soaked in early East Bengal pressure, they even dominated the better part of the second session when a freak interference denied them a sure goal. A K.P. Zubair shot struck the base of one crosspiece, the ball rolled along the goalline to the other end before the danger was averted.

That was 25 minutes after half-time when East Bengal were still in the red. A 2-0 advantage for Mohammedan Sporting at that juncture could well have shut the door on the red-and-gold heavyweights.

As it turned out, East Bengal did manage to turn the tide. Both their goals materialised after the introduction of I.M. Vijayan, but that was just a coincidence.

During his 20-odd minutes’ presence on the field, the veteran striker didn’t do anything to suggest he could have a memorable swansong. His best effort was an angular placement which missed the target by a foot.

What stood out in East Bengal’s first-half performance was the lack of a finisher. Alvito D’Cunha and Sasthi Duley came up with some incisive passes in the opening minutes but there was none to put the ball into the goal. R.C. Prakash was found wanting, forcing Subhas Bhowmick to withdraw him and push Nabi up front from the rear-line.

That Nabi ? who had a gash below his left eye following a collision with Gautam Debnath ? excelled in his preferred position, should set the East Bengal coach thinking: whether he should at all give the striker a defensive role at a time when there’s no other goalscorer in sight.

With principal gamemaker D’Cunha fading out gradually, the East Bengal halfline resembled a rudderless ship. There were acres and acres of open space in the middle of the park and the hard-running Mohammedan Sporting medios ? Suman, Satyajit Bose and Mohammad Mukhtar in particular ? used it well.

Zubair, who was a leading force in Mohammedan Sporting’s successful NFL premier division qualifying campaign with four goals, did bother the East Bengal defence from time to time but seemed to have lost his scoring touch on this day.

Suman had, earlier, seemed to have made up for such shortcomings when he latched on to a Zubair pass and, from 20 yards out, slotted home with his outstep past a bewildered Rajat Ghosh Dastidar. The scorer of that smart goal, alas, ended up on the losing side.

TEAMS

East Bengal: Rajat Ghosh Dastidar, Syed Rahim Nabi, Covan Lawrence, Arun Malhotra, Gurpreet Singh, Sasthi Duley, Saumik Dey, Bernard Pires, Jatin Singh Bist (Chandan Das, 82), Alvito D’Cunha (I.M. Vijayan, 68), R.C. Prakash (K. Kulothungan, 40).

Mohammedan Sporting: Gopal Das, Kabijit Khotel, Madhusudan Majumdar, Madhab Das, Gautam Debnath, Satyajit Bose (Rotdinson Sangma, 86), Suman Dutta, Malswama (Chetan Mukhi, 75), Mohammad Mukhtar, K.P. Zubair, Belal Ahmed (Raman Vijayan, 60).

Referee: Subrata Sarkar.