An early goal raised hopes of a Tamil Nadu win and a berth in the final round of the Santosh Trophy, but Karnataka found a late equaliser to take that issue into the final set of matches in the South Zone phase on Monday.
Had Karnataka won, it too would have obtained an early ticket to Siliguri, where the main phase of the National championship is to be held. Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are on seven points each.
However, Saturday’s result came as good tidings for last year’s runner-up Kerala. With one loss and two wins, Kerala (six points) needed this relief to set up a one-on-one with Karnataka on Monday to decide which of the two will proceed.
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Tamil Nadu, on the other hand, can wait for the outcome of the Kerala-Karnataka match to work out its possibilities. The host plays Andhra in the last match of this phase. Andhra has just one win and two losses till date.
Perhaps inspired by the lifeline, Kerala chalked out a 17-0 win over Andaman and Nicobar. The big margin should come in handy should ‘goal-difference’ come into play. Shibinlal’s five goals, including a hat-trick, the first in this championship, was the highlight of the match.
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But the goodly crowd had gathered for Tamil Nadu’s show. Music and cheers reached a crescendo the moment Raegan found the net off a Sudhakar pass in the ninth minute. Only minutes earlier lanky Charles Anandaraj had tested rival goalkeeper Thomas with a crisp freekick from 25 yards.
Xavier Vijayakumar took time to settle, but once he found his rhythm Karnataka squared out the exchanges. What is more Tamil Nadu’s sharpness dipped.
Gradually, Karnataka closed in and almost found the equaliser nearing half-time. Don Bosco headed in from the far post off a flier from Xavier, but referee Arun Pillai disallowed the goal for infringement, the scorer having pushed down a defender. In hindsight, that goal and the eventual equaliser in the 65th minute by Prakash (header) could have provided a different turn to the day’s outcome.
The results: Tamil Nadu 1 (Raegan 9) drew with Karnataka 1 (B. Prakash 65).
Kerala 17 (Shibinlal 5, Suhair 4, Usman 3, Jipson Justus 2, sub Nasarudheen Cheriyath 2, Johnson) bt Andamans and Nicobar 0.