Bihar eliminate Pondicherry; to take on Haryana on Monday

Gurgaon, Sep 16 (UNI) Niranjan Kumar Patel struck in the second half as a patchy Bihar scraped past Pondicherry by a solitary goal in a lacklustre Cluster I tie of the 61st National Football Championship for Santosh Trophy here today.

Bihar dominated the proceedings while Pondicherry were content defending and it took the winners 60 minutes and a lot of sweat to break the deadlock.

The winners were good in parts combining well and attacking through short passes even as they enjoyed bulk of the ball possession. However, they were awfully blunt upfront with most of the moves ending up inside the rival box courtesy an unimaginative forward line.

If Bihar were bad, Pondicherry were worse as the Union Territory team played without any purpose and therefore lacked speed and fire power.

Bihar will be severly tested when they take on Haryana on September 18 for a place in the pre-quarterfinal knockout phase.

Pondicherry, on the other hand, crashed out of the tourney after their second successive defeat today.

The winners began with a bang when in the fifth minute when Babloo Kumar Yadav set up a beautiful ball from the right flank for an unmarked Amar Prasad Kharwar inside the box but the Bihar striker took too long and his shot was blocked by rival defenders in front of the goal.

But the best opportunity came in the 31st minute when an unchecked Indra Kant muffed a fine chance after receiving a bisecting pass from the middle of the field.

Kant made an overlapping run towards the goal but his feeble shot hit the legs of rival goalkeeper and the ball came back into play.

After the barren first half, Bihar pressed for a goal and their attack became sharper with the intoduction of Ramesh Kumar and Raj Kishore Yadav upfront.

They were rewarded in the 60th minute when a free kick by right back Shoyab was headed down by Raj Kishore and the poaching Patel fired in a powerful volley from inside the penalty box.

In the next 30 minutes, Bihar tried to increase the margin but Pondicherry defence stood firm with Vira Saravanane standing like a rock.

UNI PDS DH BST1835