Sports
Manipur Polo International: Manipur thrash Indian Navy 18-1; UK down USA 8-3
Our Correspondent
Imphal, Nov. 25 (EMN): India B (Manipur) trounced Indian Navy 18-1 in the first ground while UK defeated USA 8-3 in the second ground on the fourth day of the Manipur Polo International 2022, organised by the Manipur Horse Riding and Polo Association, at Mapal Kangjeibung on Friday.
In the first match, the local boys completely outplayed the Indian Navy team as indicated by the score line. Indian Navy were the first to draw blood in the 1.32nd minute through Cdr AK Panchal in the first chukkar.
But shortly after, Manipur opened their account and pumped in as many as six goals in the first chukkar. T Pradeepkumar, P Ojit and Atangba scored two goals apiece.
In the second chukkar, Manipur fired in five more goals with Atangba scoring thrice and P Ojit twice while the Indian Navy team failed to score a single goal.
Manipur continued to dominate the game in the third and fourth chukkar with hardly any fight back from the Navy team.
L Rohit who came in place of Atangba, added three goals and Pradeepkumar added one more for Manipur in the third chukkar. In the last chukkar, Manipur scored three more goals through Rohit (two) and Pradeep (one).
The match between the USA and the UK in the second ground was crucial for both the teams as the winning team would have a fair chance of making it to the finals.
Until the third chukkar, the match was keenly fought and the teams were evenly poised. But the UK team suddenly changed gears in the last chukkar and ran away with the match.
UK scored in 5.20th minute of the first chukkar through Phil Sellers, the USA team leveled the score in the second chukkar through JP Varquez in the 5.03rd minute.
In the third chukkar, Harry Tucker and Phil Seller scored for the UK team while Jorge Varquez and Will Boland scored for the USA to end the chukkar with a score line of 3-3.
In the final chukkar, the UK team fired in as many as five goals with Harry Tucker, who was in devastating form, scoring thrice and Captain George Amore once and another goal in favour of the UK team as penalty number 1 without any reply. The match ended 8-3 in favour of the UK.