East Bengal ride their luck

LUDHIANA: Favourites East Bengal made good use of a ninth minute blooper by JCT marksman, Tejinder Kumar and fought hard for 90 minutes in the most uncharacteristic way to notch up their first away win in 10th ONGC Cup NFL, here on Thursday.
A powerful 20-yard drive by Ndem deflected off the unfortunate defender to enter the goal, stunning a diving Kalyan Choubey, the JCT custodian, and the motley crowd that had just settled down at the Guru Nanak stadium.But for that goal, East Bengal could not manage even one good shot at the goal but still won 1-0 to take their tally to 12 from six outings while JCT squandered what convincingly looked like three points and languish down the ladder, with five points from an equal number of outings.
East Bengal sustained their unimpressive show for the whole of the match, aided by an off-colour Bhaichung Bhutia and the absence of Mike Okoro. The win, though, was largely effected by Rajat Ghosh Dastidar who was brilliant under the bar, making three goalline saves, and some inspired defending led by Cameroonian N Martial.
Somewhere in between the two midfielders, Shylo Malsawmtluanga and the stocky Ndem kept on providing the occasional pass for Bhaichung and Rahim Nabi up-front.
That, perhaps, was the reason EB's Belgian coach, Phillip de Ridder seemed a little bemused. "It was a bad day for us. We did not play well and there were couple of bad refereeing decisions. But I am happy that we got three points in our first away match."
JCT's woes were, however, compounded by the inability of the Man of the Match, Sunil Chettri and Nigerian Johnson to combine well for a perfect finish to the several well co-ordinated moves. Chettri started for the first time in place of the league's second highest scorer, Praveen Kumar, who was on two yellow cards in successive matches. His absence somehow proved vital for JCT who had as many as seven shots on target compared to none from East Bengal. JCT coach, Parminder Singh confessed after the match, "Somewhere we missed him (Praveen). He utilises the gaps which is what we got today in plenty."
The bad news for East Bengal is that they will miss their dependable midfielder, Ndem in their crucial home tie against a strong Mahindra outfit.
The Cameroonian saw a controversial yellow card in the 24th minute. He was already carrying another yellow.