Thiruvananthapuram: Chirag United Kerala produced their first home win of the season as they defeated Kolkata outfit Prayag United 2-1 in a tight encounter in the tenth round of the I-League at the University Stadium, Trivandrum on Saturday.
David Sunday's brace was the stand-out performance of the day, while Yusif Yakubu reduced the deficit for the away side.
Chirag, in their fifth home match, rallied well and beat Prayag United, considered to be one of the top teams in the league.
For Chirag, David Sunday scored both goals and was adjudged Man of the Match. The first goal came in the 45th minute and second in the 70th minute. Prayag's goal came in the 49th minute through Yusif Yakubu.
Nizam Packeer Ali handed Usman Ashik with his first start in his career, relegating his first-choice winger Shahbaz Saleel to the bench. David Sunday and Anil Kumar partnered the attack for the home side, while Prayag were without their captain Lalkamal Bhomwik on their long trip to Kerala, who was replaced by Jayante Sen in the starting eleven.
It was all Chirag United Kerala in the first two minutes of the game, and they could have been three goals ahead if the young Ashik had taken all the opportunities he had received in front of the Prayag goal.
It was Chirag who took the lead in the 45th minute, improvising on a mistake by Arnab Mondal, whose back-pass to the 'keeper was intercepted by David Sunday, who lifted over Abhijit into the goal, for his first goal. The teams went into half-time with Chirag in the driving seat.
Prayag found the equaliser immediately after the start of the second half. The Chirag defence was unable to negotiate Sukhan Dey's long throw into the box, which fell to Yakubu to tap in, his seventh goal of the season.
The match seemed to be turning in the away team's favour as the second half progressed, until Sunday again made use of a mistake from Arnab to score the winner for Chirag.
The goal came as a breather for Chirag United as they were struggling to earn the points, despite playing well in the previous matches.
The win earns them eight points from ten matches, while Prayag have 17 points. This was the last match for Chirag at Trivandrum. Now, they will take on East Bengal at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Kochi in their next game.
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