Chennai: Spirited Mumbai Marines came back from a goal down to tame Chennai Cheetahs 4-2 in the Bridgestone World Series Hockey on Tuesday. Braving the early setback, Mumbai came out with matching strategy to maul the home side to garner second win in four matches. Marines proved they count, and are no longer pushovers. This denied Chennai its third victory in four.
Devinder Walmiki, Anup Anthony, Ajmir Singh and Bimal Lakra posted a goal apiece in the 10th, 30th, 40th and 53rd minutes. Imran Warsi and Sunil Yadav netted for Cheetah’s in the 3rd and 66th minutes, respectively.
The home side matched the Marines on every count, but lacked acumen at penalty corner drills. While Mumbai made use of three out of four penalty corners, the Cheetahs wasted four of them, striking only from the first and sixth.
Jaded in frontline, sluggish in defence, Chennai disappointed large stands in the first World Series Hockey encounter the hockey crazy metro, hosted today. On the other hand, Ajmer Singh, Viren Rasquinha and Devinder Walmiki played a stellar roll in controlling the pace of the game, break their rivals’ rhythm to ensure Marines’ memorable win.
Viren in particular showed his class; the way he intercepted Imran Warsi’s penalty corner in the fourth quarter was a treat to watch.
Performance such as this paved for Marines’ glory in Chennai.
Contrarily, the Cheetahs were on top gear from the moment the ball was set on motion on the sprightly turf of Mayor Radhakrishnan Stadium in Chennai. It paid dividends. The home team worked on its strength -- penalty corners -- keeping man in form Syed Imran Warsi in mind.
Captain Brent Livermore cleverly manufactured a penalty corner quickly, and let the danger man to do the rest. Imran’s delayed drag flick found home through the stretched legs of captain-goalkeeper Adrain D’Souza (4th min, 1-0).
Gangling youngster Devinder Walmiki -- he missed the previous match due to a nasty tackle on his stomach -- returned to play today, and right earnestly rescued the team from further damage. Dashing and full of dodge, he trimmed the wagging tails of Cheetahs and their defence for once came under stress.
A wrong tackle resulted, leaving German umpire Mark Knulle to award a penalty corner of which Devinder struck (10th min, 1-1). The goal changed the dynamics of the game and it was Marines all the way till then.
Marines pounded Cheetah’s citadel relentlessly, mostly from right flank. A goal looked imminent and it was through the stick of substitute Anup Anthony (24th min 2-1).
A forward took a shot at the cage, goalie Jasbir Singh dived to his left, and tackled only to yield a short rebound. Anup, who was just substituted by coach Ashish Ball a minute before, trapped it, and hit hard before falling for the all important lead.
Late in the second quarter, Knulle had to stop the game after spotting 12 Marines on the field of play. He had no option than to flash yellow card to captain Adrian, later changed to Shashi Toppo.
In the third quarter, played on fast pace, Marines went up twice. Alert and opportunistic Ajmir Singh deflected the ball home in an indirect penalty corner drill (40th min, 3-1) and then veteran Bimal Lakra showed his class in the set piece drill.
Chennai played a good fourth quarter, but the frontline did not measure up to the task. Local lad Veerasamy Raja in particular messed up two sitters, and then Imran Warsi’s magic did not work beyond his 3rd minute strike.
Marines’ Troy Sutherland was the man of the match.
