Indo-Asian News Service
Mumbai, Jan 31: Dabang Mumbai suffered their fourth consecutive loss of the Hockey India League (HIL) as they went down 4-6 to a dominant Kalinga Lancers at the Mahindra Hockey Stadium here Sunday.
With the win, Lancers were in third spot with 17 points from five games, having won three and lost two while Mumbai were at the bottom of the table with four points from as many games.
The first half was barren despite fierce hockey by both the teams. The second quarter started with a flurry of attacks from the visiting side who were well rewarded for their attacking play in the first five minutes of the second quarter with Gurjinder Singh giving the visitors a 1-0 lead via penalty corner. Lancers brought more trouble for the home side as a penalty corner earned in the 25th minute was successfully converted by Adam Dixon to make it 2-0 in favour of home side.
Just a minute into the third quarter, Mumbai got a chance to open their scoring via penalty corner but that was not to be. Instead three minutes later in the 32nd minute, things became worse for the hosts as Lalit Upadhyay earned a superb field goal to make it 4-0 in the visitors’ favour. Glenn Turner sent a perfect diagonal shot and Lalit who had come into the field after a green card dived to connect it to right of the Mumbai goalkeeper.
The home side came back well in the 41st minute as Florian Fuchs scored a field goal from the centre between the legs of the goalie to make it 2-4. From there on both sides went into the final break ahead of the fourth quarter with Lancers leading 4-2.
Gurjant Singh scored a field goal for Mumbai in the 48th minute to level things up 4-4. With five minutes left from the final whistle, the visitors capitalised on some poor defending from Mumbai as Quirijn Caspers scored a field goal to make it 6-4 in their favour.