HIL 2016 – Kalinga and Caspers quash Mumbai's spirited comeback
Dabang Mumbai were down 4-0 at the end of the second quarter and were staring down at another defeat. However, the home side showed a lot of grit and determination to fight back and level the score, before conceding the lead once again to Kalinga Lancers. Mumbai have now lost all of their four matches so far, as Kalinga move up to second in the points table.
In the ninth minute of the first quarter, Kalinga Lancers won a penalty corner after Jeremy Hayward fouled Glenn Turner inside the box. Gurjinder Singh stepped up and he found the top corner of the net, to give his side an early 1-0 lead.
A couple of minutes later, Kaling doubled their lead from another penalty corner. Coach Mark Hager has certainly put in a lot of hours in training sessions to practice different variations of penalty corners, and it paid off once again. Matthew Dawson's strike from the penalty corner was delightfully deflected in by Adam Dixon, who got in front of his man Jeremy Hayward, to put Kalinga 2-0 ahead.
Kalinga went further ahead and established what seemed like an unassailable lead in the second quarter, from a terrific counter-attack. Matthew Willis picked out Glenn Turner with a long ball, who skipped a challenge from a defender, before picking out Lalit Kumar Upadhyay at the far post, with a lovely pass. The Indian forward dived in with his stick to turn it into the net and give his side a 4-0 lead.
The match seemed like a lost cause at this moment, but Dabang Mumbai, desperate to give their fans something to cheer, fought back and equalized. The opened their account through Florian Fuchs in the third quarter, before Gurjant Singh scored the equalizer at the start of the fourth, to make it 4-4.
Just when it seemed like Mumbai would be able to avoid a defeat for the first time this season, Kalinga and Quirijn Caspers heaped more misery on them. The midfielder found the back of the net in the 10th minute of the fourth quarter to put his team back in the lead at 6-4, and it arrived from a stunning counter attack, Moritz Fuerste picked out Caspers with a jaw-dropping long pass, which left him one-on-one with the goalkeeper. Caspers kept his calm and scored what proved to be the winning goal in the end.