In a match marred by controversial refereeing, Kerala snatched a thrilling 4-4 draw against Maharashtra in the third round of Group A matches of the Santosh Trophy National Football Championship at Bhubaneswar on Tuesday. Trailing 1-4, Kerala made a stunning comeback by pumping in three goals in the second half to bring the scores level.
Both the teams would be feeling robbed of a certain win by the referee as he made some blatant errors in the match.
With Punjab defeating hosts Odisha 2-1 and Karnataka beating Goa 2-0 in other matches in the group, the draw against Kerala also signalled Maharashtra’s exit from the tournament. However, the solitary point has kept Kerala’s hopes alive in the tournament. Kerala have four points from three matches and are fourth in Group A. Punjab and Karnataka occupy the top two spots with seven points each.
Maharashtra had a dream start as goals from Sufiyan Sheikh (17), Himanshu Patil (20), Sumit Bhandari (34) and Tejas Raut (42) gave them a comfortable 4-1 lead at the interval. Vishak Mohanan (38) scored Kerala's only goal in the first half.
But Kerala came out a different side after the breather as Nijo Gilbert (66, pen), V Arjun (70) and John Paul Jose (77) scored for Kerala in the space of 11 minutes to set up an exciting end.
Kerala’s equalizer, however, resulted in a huge controversy. Though the referee blew the whistle for the game to restart after a water break, Maharashtra players had not returned to the field and John Paul Jose capitalised on the opportunity to score. This resulted in huge protests from the Maharashtra players and the match was halted for more than 15 minutes.
But the controversy didn’t end there. When the game resumed, the referee missed out on awarding a penalty for Kerala, as striker John Paul was brought down inside the box by Maharashtra goalkeeper Shivam Pednekar. A few moments later, Maharashtra faced a similar fate as the referee failed to give them a penalty as the ball hit Kerala defender Vishnu's hands in the penalty box.
Though the fourth official had given an additional 15 minutes, the referee decided to blow the final whistle after 13 minutes of added-on time to add to the debatable calls made by him in the game.
