Ironically, for a team that remained unbeaten for 10 matches, this defeat may prove their undoing, as it leaves Air-India with a better chance of winning the title.

A series of mistakes in the Mahindras defence culminated in Sanjay Hazare getting the ball in front of the goal. He scored without mistake.

Mahindras coach SS Hakim was understandably upset: ``One blunder cost us the match. We would have liked to close out the league without conceding a goal,'' he lamented.

It was a classic case of opportunitism from the Bankmen. After the goal in the 40th minute, Bank closed shop and settled down to defend the lead. They tended to panic at times, and as Mahindras' desperation grew, the pressure on BoI increased proportionately.

But the BoI defence had the last laugh. Evaristo Cardoz and Umesh Shetty weresolid. There was a healthy contribution from the support cast -- wingbacks Shyamal Singha and Prakash Mehra, though the latter was taken apart late in the match by Abbas Ali Rizvi.

What BoI were successful was to deny any space in the centre. In this regard, Navin Kotian and Hazare were successful. They kept their bag of artistic tricks home and went out to spoil the Mahindras centre throughly.

Though they missed the bustling Chandrakant Poojary upfield, the stylish Anton Saldanha did enough to trouble Mahindras with his touchplay.

With the midfield virtually shut out for them, Mahindras had to use the wings for attacks. And only the left worked today with Surmani Singh overlapping. On the other side, Christopher was a failure.

Though Mahindras virtually camped at BoI's half of the field in the second session, the real chance came to them on just a couple of times.

The best chance in the first half came prior to BoI's goal. Surmani crossed from the left and Rizvi trapped and found the BoI defencemoving upwards. Rizvi had a quick shot with BoI goalkeeper, Sanju Verma advancing. The ball was not on target.

Another open chance came to them just before the half when Rizvi shot over from almost the six-yard box.

Verma, who was sure and must have given the BoI defence plenty of security with his collection, fumbled just once with a cross. With Verma out of his charge, the ball went to Andrew Louis who lobbed but Umesh Shetty cleared the ball spectacularly, with a back-volley.

In the relegation league, Union Bank were held by Fr Agnel. UBI scored first through Vijay Thapa but Agnello Gomes scored the equaliser for Fr Agnel.