Bangladesh’s 3-0 victory over Uttarakhand in the final Subroto Cup pre-quarterfinal league match at the Ambedkar Stadium on Wednesday wasn’t enough to take them to the quarters — the stage their predecessors had reached in the last three years consistently — but skipper Mohammad Shakhawat Hossain and coach Ujjwal Chakroborty will return with their heads held high.

A reason for their pride will be due to their performance — five wins, one draw and four losses — but a bigger reason to smile will come from the fact that majority of the bunch is still under-14.

Shakhawat and Co. had made two consecutive Subroto Cup semi-finals in 2007 and 2008 and the same team graduated to the under-17 category this year. Last year they were rocked by charges of fielding overage players —as many as six players were caught in the net — and the increasing u-14 numbers is only an indication of the extra carefulness the management has observed.

“It’s very easy to notice the physical disadvantage of our players as compared to the opponents. Most of the boys are well below the under-17 category they are playing in and many are still under-14,” Chakroborty told Sportline.

Another compulsion came from the Bangladesh government which runs the BKSP school as a part of their country’s youth sports development programme. “We are answerable to the Bangladesh government for whatever happens here because they run the school. We had to face a lot of difficulties last year after six players were found overage. This time we didn’t want to take a chance,” Chakroborty admitted.

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