New Delhi, Dec 25 Jaideep Singh's hat-trick handed hosts Delhi their first win in Group 1 of the Hero Santosh Trophy 76th National Senior Men's Football Championship. Karnataka and Gujarat too won their matches in this cluster on Sunday.
Delhi's attitude, which played a goalless draw with Tripura in their first match, looked sharp on Sunday. In a one-sided contest played at the Dr. Ambedkar Stadium, Delhi thrashed new-entrant Ladakh 7-0.
In the day's other matches played at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Karnataka defeated Uttarakhand by 3-1 after a hard-fought fight, while Gujarat thrashed Tripura 6-0.
Striker Jaideep Singh, who was the hero of Delhi's victory, scored four goals. Raviraj (18th minute), Ajay Rawat (35th and 90+4 minutes) and Gaurav Chadha (40th minute) were the other scorers for Delhi. The winning team was leading 3-0 at half-time.
Compared to their last match, Delhi's game looked completely different on Sunday. Notably, the frontline players led the hosts to victory by a huge margin despite missing nearly half a dozen chances.
Jaideep, who was the player of the match, scored his three goals in the 47th, 88th and 90+1 minutes. Both the goals of veteran striker Ajay Singh Rawat (35th and 90+4th minutes) were also praiseworthy.
With Sunday's win, Delhi have moved to the second position in Group 1. They have four points from two matches with one win and one draw. Karnataka are ahead of them on top of Group 1 with six points. Karnataka won their second consecutive match on Sunday. On the other hand, Gujarat are in third place with three points from two matches with one win and one loss. Uttarakhand, Tripura and Ladakh have one point each from a draw in two matches.
Earlier, Karnataka defeated Uttarakhand 3-1 after a tough fight in the first match of the day played at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.
Jacob John Kattukaren scored the first goal of the match in the 21st minute to give Karnataka the lead. But in the 44th minute, Ajay Bisht equalized for Uttarakhand (1-1). But during stoppage time, Shajan Franklin scored a goal in the 45+3rd minute to put Karnataka ahead 2-1.
In the second half, Uttarakhand played attacking football throughout but just before the end of the match, substitute Ankit P. scored a goal in the 90th+3rd minute to give Karnataka a 3-1 win.
In the third match of the day, Gujarat trounced Tripura 6-0 with Jay Kanani scoring four goals including a hat-trick in the 20th, 67th, 90+2nd and 90+5th minutes. Captain Moinuddin and Dharmesh Parmar were the other scorers for them.
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