MUMBAI, June 8: CRMD had earlier lost their opening match to Sports Authority of India (SAI) 1-3.Young and upcoming Vikram Pillay, playing as centre-half was the key contributor in UBI's victory. He not only made openings for UBI's two exciting goals but also scored a `stroke', the decisive goal in the dying moments of the match to take his side to victory.
The fast-paced match saw UBI take the lead in the 14th minute when Pillay gave a cross-pass to the unmarked left-out Deepak Joshi. The latter did well to tap the ball into the net, catching CRMD custodian Arun Gurung in the wrong angle.
The rest of the first-half saw no goals as CRMD looked content to keep the UBI forwards at bay.
The second-half saw UBI miss many chances. But CRMD took their chances and manged to bang in the equaliser in the 50th minute through a penalty corner direct conversion by veteran full-back Sukhbinder Singh.
Four minutes later, UBI found their touch with a fine field goal netted by Balbinder Singh off a Pillay throughpass. The stunned CRMD tried with renewed vigour and managed to get the second equaliser through hard-working half Rakesh P.
But UBI continued to put pressure on the CRMD defence and their repeated raids saw umpire SS Walia grant them a `stroke' for deliberate infringement by custodian Gurung. Pillay made no mistake as he slammed the ball to the extreme right of the post, two minutes from the final whistle.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.