Manipur won a hard fought match against USA, beating them by a slender margin of 6-4 while France after three loses, managed to salvage a point holding India A to a 5-5 draw on the fifth day of the 13th Manipur Polo International 2019 being played at Mapal Kangjeibung.
Manipur started well in their match against USA with P Ojit scoring in the 1.59th minute.
After this goal both the teams mounted several attacks but did not result in any clear shot at the goal. The lull was finally broken when George Huber scored for USA in the 5.37th minute to draw level. Almost a minute later, Jacob scored for Manipur to lead 2-1 at the end of the 1st chukker.
With P Ojit scoring in the first 16th seconds of the 2nd chukker it looked as Manipur would run away with the match from here but that was not to be. The USA not only prevented Manipur from adding any more goals to its tally but also added two goals through George Krabbe and Tommy Huber to draw level 3-3.
With both the teams scoring one more goal each in the 3rd chukker and the scoreline reading 4-4, the game could have gone either way. But in the 4th and deciding chukker, while the Americans failed to score any goal, P Ojit who has been in tremendous form, scored his third and fourth goals of the match to take the game away from USA. Manipur won 6-4.
In the second match, France after three straight narrow loses managed to play out a draw against India A. With both the teams evenly matched, the match turned out to be highly entertaining. The last chukker especially, proved to be a thriller as France finally caught up with India A in the dying seconds of the match.
India A was the first to open its account when Ram Singh scored in the 3.40th minute of the 1st chukker. About a minute later, Clement Gosset, the most prolific scorer for France, scored to make it 1-1 at the end of the chukker.
In the 2nd chukker, while Dfr Vijay Singh scored for India A, Clement added two more goals for France to inch ahead 3-2. The 3rd chukker belonged to India A as they managed put in two more goals through Rajpurohit and Vijay Singh while holding the French at bay thereby taking a 4-3 lead.
And when Sameer Choudhary scored in the 1.47th minute of the 4th chukker to extend the lead to 5-3, all seemed over for the French. But Clement pulled one back in the 3.25th minute and as the clock was ticking towards the final gong, Romain Darroux fired in a beautiful shot from around forty yards straight into the goal to make it 5-5.
