Hoodwinking defenders comes naturally to Churchill Brothers’ s Okolie Odafa, but doing it against fiercest rivals Dempo SC gives him a different pleasure. On Saturday in the Durand Cup semi-final, he did it with the opponent midfielders too, leading his team to the third consecutive Durand Cup final.

Churchill won 2-1, but the one against them only showed the late resistance from Dempo, who are still struggling to string together the midfield and their new strike pair of Ranti Martins and Sunil Chhetri.

Despite scoring once, Odafa remained the centre of every move, defensive or aggressive. The Nigerian expressed frustration early in the first half for being disallowed any space by Indian defenders Mahesh Gawli and Anwar Ali, had to be stretchered out following scuffles, pierced the same defenders to score in the 50th minute that followed by a little party in front of the Dempo dugout and picked up a yellow card in added time trying to fizzle Dempo’s last shot at goal.

But the bigger slice of the cake was offered to Churchill’s smallest figure on the turf — Charan Rai. After a promotion to the starting XI for his late equalizer in the last match, Rai vindicated the opportunity with a bit of luck, putting his team into the lead in the 20th minute. His shot carried a slight deflection from Dempo defender Creson Antao to wrong-foot goalkeeper Abhijit Mondal at the far post.

For Dempo, Nicolau Borges and Anthony Pererira kept feeding the forwards with crosses, but Chhetri and Martins were kept in check by the Dempo defenders.

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