Bharat Electronics Limited opened their Super Division campaign by staging a remarkable 2-1 comeback win against the fancied Controllerate of Inspection Electronics at the Bangalore Football stadium here on Tuesday.

One of five sides who earned promotion to the Super Division, thanks to the revised format, BEL were trailing 0-1 till the 79th minute before scoring two goals in the last 10 minutes.

CIL had only themselves to blame for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory after Pradeep had given them an early lead, in the 14th minute. In the first half, both sides had a fair amount of chances, but luck favoured CIL. A mis-pass from one of the BEL defenders saw Saravanan take possession of the ball in the centre.

He quickly relayed the the ball to Pradeep, who excelled with his speedy run down the left flank and scored past BEL custodian Vasudevan. In the 37th minute, BEL could easily have found the equaliser if not some heroics from CIL custodian Chand Pasha, who brought off a brilliant save to thwart Stephen’s headed effort.

After the breather, egged on by a pep talk from coach Thyaragaraj, BEL went on the offensive and very nearly scored in the 54th minute, but Stephen fell into the off-side trap and assistant referee Lawrence promptly blew the whistle before his header found the net. The BEL forwards continued to make inroads into the rival defence and their  perseverance finally paid off when Srinivasan’s 80th-minute strike helped them draw level.

The architect of the goal was Avinash, who dribbled past three CIL defenders to get the ball into the penalty box.
With BEL having pulled off the equaliser, CIL started feeling the heat. Ravindran picked up for a yellow card for a rough challenge on Jaya Vandan. With a minute to go for the final whistle, Suman delivered the knockout blow by scoring off a rebound.

On Wednesday, HASC take on Orientals.