Midfield tussle for the ball between Dabang Mumbai and UP Wizards during the game Tuesday Photo HI website
Mumbai: Dishing out a superlative display, Dabang Mumbai swamped Uttar Pradesh Wizards 6-3 in their concluding round-robin game of HIL-IV to keep their hopes of semifinals alive, here Tuesday.
Mumbai scored three excellent field goals, which count as a double strike as per the rules of the tournament, through Gurjant Singh (14th minute), Florian Fuchs (42nd) and Yosuf Affan (59th).
For UP Wizards, who were already out of semifinal contention, VR Raghunath (19th, penalty corner) and Chinglensana Singh (30th, field goal), were the goal-getters.
It was only the fourth win for Mumbai from 10 outings, but it was enough to put them level on points with Kalinga Lancers (25) who play Delhi Waveriders in the last round robin encounter Wednesday.
If Lancers win, Mumbai will be through, but if Delhi win they will be through and goal difference will come into play to decide the last semifinal spot from among Lancers and Mumbai.
The match got off to a breezy start with UP Wizards having the first shy at the rival goal in the second minute but Akashdeep Singh’s shot was blocked by Mumbai custodian David Harte, who had an outstanding game.
Gurjant then hit wide a superb long through ball from his Mumbai teammate Harmanpreet Singh but made amends off a counter-attack later with a field effort a few minutes later.
After resumption, UP adopted aggressive measures to restore parity. Their efforts bore fruit when Ragunath beat Harte with a firm hit to the goalkeeper’s right.
Mumbai’s second goal also came off a counter-attack as Nilakanta Sharma lay an inch-perfect square pass to his right for the opportunistic Fuchs to shoot home from the top of the circle. PTI
