It was Dharmaraja’s maiden win after four successive defeats while BEL, who suffered their second defeat, now have two points from four ties.
Sanju pounced on a Deepak Kumar cross from the right wing to slot home the winner for Dharmaraja in the 17th minute. Soon after, Selva had a chance to put them 2-0 up but the striker’s volley was saved by BEL goalkeeper Vasudevan, diving to his right to keep his team in the hunt.
The BEL forwards hardly threatened the rival goal and failed to find a way through the strong Dharmaraja defence. But in the 24th minute, Arvind W got one through with a defence-splitting pass to Dilip V, who shot straight at Dharmaraja custodian Hari Haran. The deflection fell in the path of Vikram S lurking inside the penalty area, but his powerful right-footer was headed off the goalline by Dilip.
Then, in the 38th minute, the BEL goal survived another scare when Sanju’s left-footer from the left hit the woodwork.
In the second half, Selva missed a couple of golden opportunities which would have given Dharmaraja some breathing space. The striker failed to trap the ball cleanly on both occasions with Vasudevan at his mercy.
BEL, on the other hand, were done in by the lack of firepower in their attacks and wayward passing.
Meanwhile, the organisers said the decision on the rain-hit Saturday’s MEG-CIL match has been put off to Wednesday. MEG were leading 3-0 when the match was called off due to waterlogging on the newly-laid turf, eight minutes into the second half.
Other result: ‘A’ Division: DYSH: 3 (Sunil Kumar 43rd, 47th, Harish 71st) bt LRDE: 0.
