Punjab surprise Kerala

Punjab broke the trend of one-sided matches as they rallied from two goals down to beat Kerala 3-2 on the third day of the 11th National women's football championship in Chennai on Tuesday.

In another Group-C match, Haryana trounced lowly Chandigarh 11-0, while in Group A encounters, Tripura beat  Jammu and Kashmir 13-0 and Goa managed to hold on to its lone third minute goal by Elwina Miranda to eliminate Karnataka from the reckoning.

Both Goa (6 points from 2 wins) and Tripura (4 points from two matches) have already made it to last eight but will play on Thursday to decide the group winners.

The Punjab-Kerala match was the only one so far to show some semblance of competition among the nine matches played in the championship. The Kerala women were more artistic and wove patterns to head their way to the rival goalmouth. The link line was excellent with inteceptions and deservedly they went into the lead in the 19th minute through Amrutha Aravind.

Sheeba increased the lead in the 34th minute.

On the other hand, the Punjab women showed their might and displayed their fighting qualities. A minute to go for half-time, Arti reduced the margin.

Crossing over, Kerala were at the receiving end most often and in a counter attack, Punjab's Gurmeet Kaur found the equaliser in the 49th minute.

While Kerala were hoping to share points, Punjab substitute Sharanjit Kaur scored the winner following a through pass from Harjinder Kaur.

In the match between Punjab and Chandigarh, Pooja (3), Renu (3), Roma (2), Reena, Sonika and Monika (Sr) helped the former score while Rink Das (3), Sipra Dey (3), Soma Batacharji (2), Ruma Raki Saha (2), Ruma Dabbarma, Rumita Dabbarma and Gulti Chourdhry were the scores for Tripura against J and K.