SBT lucky to escape with a draw

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, MARCH 31. State Bank of Travancore saved itself from the embarrassment of a fourth consecutive defeat when it recoiled to hold Indian Telephone Industries Limited, Bangalore 1-1 in the V National football league at the Chandrasekharan Nair stadium here on Saturday. Kenneth Ugwo and V.Suresh Babu were the scorers for their respective teams.

Sadly, but for the goals, the match on the whole was a dull and drab affair with neither team being able to match up to the expectations. True, that ITI was at least positive in its approach initially, but having got the lead the Bangalore side was a failure in sustaining the early momentum and looked satisfied and happy to hold on to the ball for long spells at the middle.

At the other end, SBT too was far from impressive lacking in speed and miserable with the passes. And then, its defence was simply unable to cope up with the pressure mounted by the rival forwards before slipping to commit silly errors that in more ways than one only added to the woes of its custodian, Rajeev Kumar. The goalkeeper in fact was caught in a dilemma on whether to stay behind or advance as the defenders when under close call got panicky and failed to clear the ball first-time.

The Bangalore side perched in a comfortable position even as the SBT defenders continued to grope in the dark was quick to take advantage of the prevailing situation as Kenneth Ugwo and George Ekeh combined well to the prompting made by Hamid Atia and Majid Oda from the midfield. The team was also not to wait for long before it achieved the break-through. In fact, it was swift to capitalise when SBT skipper, Suresh Babu, was caught for an infringement just outside the box and awarded a free-kick in its favour.

Atia almost beat Rajeev Kumar with a powerful shot before Jiju Jacob came in the way and made a goal-line save and Sivakumar helped ease the mounting tension by conceding a flag- kick. This time around, Atia's kick from the flag was far more precise and Ugwo had little difficulty in guiding the ball into the rival net with a neat header. Strangely, even the setback failed to provoke SBT into launching itself into the attack until late into the session when Saheer, fed by Ignatius, finally got a shot at goal only to see his effort being saved by an alert Mark Mascrenhas.

SBT continued to be in the attack for the rest of the time and on resumption was also eventually successful in equalising in the 50th minute when Suresh Babu lunged forward to head in a free- kick taken by substitute V. P. Shaji from just outside the dreaded area. The home team having earned the reprieve then seemed to hold all the trumps as it continued on with its improved display. However, its efforts to gain full points did not materialise as its forwards made a mess of the chances that came their way.

ITI, now clearly forced to the wall, retaliated towards the end and Ugwo even had Rajeev Kumar scrambling once on the ground before the match stood locked in a draw at full-time. The Bangalore side following today's draw now has 16 points from 17 matches while SBT 13 points from as many encounters.

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