Bengal scrape past Haryana 1-0 in Santosh Trophy

Gurgaon, Oct 14 (UNI) Despite adding four star players to the ranks, fancied West Bengal failed to live upto the expectations even though they managed to scrape past Haryana by a solitary goal in the Santosh Trophy football tournament here today.

Dipendu Biswas scored the all-important goal as early as in the second minute in an otherwise dull match, which saw hardly any creative spark.

Before the well-attended crowd could settle in their seats, Dipendu emerged out of nowhere to collect a throw-in from the right, touchline to outsprint rival defenders and then unleash a right-footer from a narrow angle that crashed into the net past a stunned Haryana custodian.

The hosts tried their best and pressed for the equaliser but Sanjib Maria was rock solid in the Bengal defence and he marshalled the citadel with elan to thwart all Haryana moves.

Bengal added four star players -- Sanjib Maria, Dipendu Biswas, Syed Rahim Nabi and Habibur Rehman Mandal-- to their preliminary league team but that hardly made any difference and despite their technical superiority over the hosts, it was a lacklustre show by them.

Haryana's best chance came in the first half but Dipak Yadav's header from close range went over the bar.

The match was more of a midfield bungle with both the sides failing to create clear chances and Haryana pressed for the equaliser throughout the match even though it didn't work.

Bengal coach Prasanta Banerjee, however, was not too unhappy with the performance.

''We added four new players and there was some lack of cohesion.

But a win is always a win and I'm happy that we got full points from the match.

''The new players have just joined in and I can assure you that we would put up a better show in the next matches,'' the former national captain said.

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