Guwahati, April 25: It will be Bengal versus Goa in the Santosh Trophy final for the third time on the trot. For Bengal, it will be their 37th final and the fifth consecutive time. This became possible after Bengal defeated Punjab 2-1 at the Nehru Stadium under floodlights here today.Baichung Bhutia, playing after a while, scored within two minutes. As the Punjab camp later admitted, that made the difference. ``It upset our rhythm and we could not play our natural game,'' opined Parminder Singh coach-cum-manager of Punjab. He could not remember the last time when Punjab had lost in a Santosh Trophy semi-final.
In fact, they would not have lost today either had their strikers been more accurate. Punjab got the lion's share of the openings, particularly in the second half. However, they could score just once towards the end. That too to reduce the margin after Srikanta Dutta made it 2-0 in the 55th minute.
The first goal was a typical Bhutia one. Biswanath Mondal on the right, passed to skipper SatyajitChaterjee who lobbed it in. Bhutia, ever present in the striking zone, jumped between two defenders a little early. Punjab's Rajesh Kumar too jumped but fell prey to Bhutia's trick and missed the flight. Bhutia headed it after it had descended into the gap, past goalkeeper Baljit Singh. Strike One for Bengal and Punjab were already rethinking their game plan.
Punjab continued to attack through the wings with Dalip Singh on the right and Bachattar Singh on the left, creating most of the moves. In fact, had Harjinder Singh and Sukhdev Singh been more alert, Punjab could have got the equaliser in the first half. Harjinder was the culprit on a number of occasions, missing easy openings. Most of his headers were going over the cross-piece although he did manage to pierce the defence of Satyabrata Bhoumik often.
A rare Punjab move down the middle resulted in a melee in front of the Bengal goal. However, before any damage could be done, it was sent back from the goalline.
Bengal got their second goal againstthe run of play in the 55th minute. Srikanta Dutta ran down the left and passed it to a waiting Chatterjee and rushed into the Punjab penalty area. Chatterjee put the ball through and Dutta found the target between the goalkeeper and the far post.
Punjab got their goal in the 87th minute. Prosanta Das placed his flag-kick in the right place for Harjinder to take a shot at the goal. The shot deflected off Satyabrata Bhoumik before entering the goal.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
