The first quarter was almost dominated by Delhi Waveriders
where they put pressure on the opponents with maximum ball possession and
attacked the D of Kalinga Lancers. In the 13th minute a brilliant pass by Jason
Wilson to Lloyd Norris Jones was missed by a whisker as the ball hit wide of
the goal.
Two minutes left for the quarter to end Kalinga Lancers was
awarded the first penalty corner of the day. Taken by Gurjinder Singh, he hit
straight at the Delhi Goalie who had no problem in clearing the danger.
At the end of the quarter both teams were unable to open their accounts and the
scorecard stood at 0-0.
The second session saw the gears changing as Kalinga Lancers
attacked equally and both team kept the pressure on each other. Minutes away
from the second half Delhi Waveriders bagged their first penalty corner of the
match but missed the opportunity. The next minute Delhi was again rewarded another short corner
and was taken by Andrew Hayward. He effortlessly put the ball past Andrew
Charter and this opened the scorecard 1-0 with Delhi leading at the end of first half.
In the 39th minute Kalinga Lancers got another penalty
corner in their name. With Gurjinder Singh not in the field it was on Glenn
Simpson who was to see his team through to the equalizer goal. But Vickram
Kanth was unable to stop the ball cleanly and the team lost the chance to
score. The next minute, a miss-pass between the Delhi players in their half was pounced on by
Aron Zalewski. Clearly beating the defence and the goalkeeper Aron scored a
brilliant field goal helping his team to open their account and level the
score at 1-1.
Post their first goal, Kalinga high on confidence
capitalized in the 49th minute. The team scored when a clean pass to Russell
Ford standing in the D made no mistake in hitting it past the Delhi goalkeeper and taking the score
to 2-1. This helped Kalinga to take the lead in the game against the
Waveriders.
For the first time on the back foot in the game, Delhi Waveriders
started looking at taking control of the game by increasing the tempo of their
attack. Minutes away from the final whistle, Delhi Waveriders had a chance to
equalise through a penalty corner but Andrew Hayward was unable to hit it past
the goalkeeper. This ended the game with Kalinga Lancers winning the game 2-1
against Delhi Waveriders.
Post the match, Cedric D’Souza, Head
Coach, Delhi Waveriders said, “Today’s match was a tale of missed
chances and defensive errors. A lot of opportunities were missed during the
match because of communication gap between the boys. The boys attained a lot of
opportunities and had a lot of circle penetrations to their name, but missed
putting the ball in the net. This is something we need to work on before we
enter the knock-out stage”
Speaking on the team’s performance Jude Felix, Head Coach,
Kalinga Lancers said “We started the tournament on a high and we ended it
on a high note. The boys have been consistent all through the League, just that
we have been unlucky to close the games in our favour. We also missed Gurjinder
who has been sitting out for couple of matches. Though no cribs against the
verdict but yes it affected us on the field.”
Hero Goal of the Match – Aron Zalewski (Kalinga
Lancers)
Man of the Match – Aron Zalewski (Kalinga Lancers)
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