Indian footballers lose to Jamaica

On their third tour to England, this time to play a national team and not lower division English clubs, the Indian footballers continued to find goals elusive. A 0-3 loss to Jamaica, part of the two-match 'Jam’In Series', organised by Sapphire Enterprises, means that just two goals have been scored by Indians so far. Jo Paul Ancheri scored against Bangladesh in the first year, and I M Vijayan got the other against Leyton Orient in 2001.

The ball did go into goal for the Indians when captain Bhaichung Bhutia hoodwinked Jamaica’s World Cup goalkeeper Aaron Lawrence with a dexterous back-heel, following a Tomba Singh centre from the right. But the Indian spearhead, who spent three years in English Division II with Bury FC (now in Division III), was ruled off-side.

Another try by medio S Venkatesh kissed Lawrence's hands and deflected off the bar. These were the best chances that India's Asian Games probables earned in a match where their players backpedalled to keep the Jamaican threat at bay.

The Indians were nervous starters and appeared quite clueless in the first quarter as the Reggae Boyz moved like a smoothly-oiled machine. But defenders -- Manitombi Singh, Deepak Mondal and Mahesh Gawli -- played their role to perfection to deny the Jamaicans success though only till the 30th minute.

The Indian citadel fell in the 34th minute, when Fabian Taylor avoided two tackles and centred for Jermaine Anderson to essay a quick left-footer that had goalkeeper Sangram Mukherjee rooted to his line. It was not to be the only blunder by the East Bengal custodian, who was outstanding on the last tour.

There was fresh enthusiasm in the second half though the Indians were without key players like Jo Paul Ancheri, Debjit Ghosh and Alex Ambrose. However, this did not fetch enough balls for strikers Bhaichung Bhutia and Abhishek Yadav, who were on their own plane on the other side of the field. They could very well have been practicing on their own.

A debatable penalty awarded by referee Steve Bennett, after Mahesh Gawali held on to Taylor, saw Jamaica captain and 1998 World Cuper Lawerence make no mistake from the spot and make it 2-0.

It was 3-0 and all over for the Indians as the Jamaicans struck in the 85th minute, when Ian Goodison connected a header from the far post.

"We did not deserve to lose so badly," said India's English coach Stephen Constantine.

"I don’t think we were humiliated," he added.

India play Jamaica again on Sunday at Wolverhampton at 9.30 p.m. IST.

Teams
India: Sangram Mukherjee; Satish Kumar Bharti (Bijen Singh-77th minute), Mahesh Gawli (Arun Malhotra-78th minute), Samir Naik, Deepak Mondal; Shanmugam Venkatesh (66th minute-Jo Paul Ancheri), Manitombi Singh, Tomba Singh, Renedy Singh (58th minute-K Ajayan); Baichung Bhutia (captain), Abhishek Yadav (61st minute-Praveen Kumar).

Jamaica: Aaron Lawrence, Jermaine Anderson (46th minute-Kevin Lisbie), Ian Goodison, Kirk Hendricks, Irvino English (58th minute-Christopher Jackson), Marco McDonald, Fabian Dawkins (77th minute-Dane Richards), Fabian Taylor, Jonathan Williams (46th minute-Damion Williams), Kevin Wilson (46th minute- Roland Dean), Claude Davies.
Referee: Steve Bennett