11th Manipur Polo International : Manipur thrash England 8-3 in tournament opener
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, November 22 2017: India B comprising players from Manipur thrashed England 8-3 in the opening match of the 11th Manipur Polo International, 2017 with L Atangba firing in four goals.

P Ojit scored two goals while T Pradeep kumar and Bimol Singh contributed one each to the final tally for Manipur, according to a press release issued by publicity sub-committee of Manipur Horse Riding and Polo Association.

The beginning of the 1st chukker gave no indication of the rout that was to follow, for the England team held off the marauding Manipuri player till the 6th minute.

That was the time when T Pradeepkumar scored opening the floodgate to the English goal.

L Atangba followed it up with another goal in the 7th minute of the same chukker.

The 2nd chukker was totally dominated by the local lads who blasted in four goals.

The first one came from Atangba in the 2nd minute of this chukker which was followed by Ojit in the 3rd minute.

Atangba scored two more goals in the 5th minute.

England team once again failed to score any goal in this chukker.

The score line showed 6-0 going into the 3rd chukker.

The 3rd chukkar saw the English side staging some sort of a fight back, they had some cracks on the goal but unluckily for them, failed to find the target.

They managed to hold the India B team for larger part of this chukker but could not stop Ojit and Bimol from scoring in the 6th and 7th minute respectively, increasing the tally to 8-0 .

The last chukker belonged to England.

They not only managed to open their account but scored three goals.

The India B team also had their chances but were not able to convert those into goals.

The hero of the English resurgence was Phil Sellers who scored all the three goals.

The goals coming in the 1 st, 2nd and 6th minute.

The India B team made two changes in the 4th chukker with Jogendra Meitei and Th Jacob coming in place of Atangba and Pradeepkumar.

L Atangba(l), P Ojit (20, (Captain) T Pradeepkumar (30), S Bimol (4), Jogendra Meitei (6) and Th Jacob (5) represented India B while for England (Captain) George Shelton (1), Ben Eeley (4), Phil Seller (2) and Robin Ormerod (3) took the field.

The umpires of the match were Martin Scortichini from Argentina and Nick Johnson of USA.

Tomorrow (November 23) will see an exhibition match between Morocco and Argentina followed by the tournament match between USA and India A .

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