East Bengal scrape past Chirag United 4-3

Kolkata, April 16 (IANS) East Bengal beat Chirag United Kerala 4-3 in a thrilling I-League encounter at the Yuba Bharati Krinangan here Monday.

For East Bengal, Penn Orji scored in the 25th minute, Tolgay Ozbey scored a brace in the 32nd and 54th minutes and Robin Singh the decider goal in the 77th minute. For Chirag Kerala, David Sunday scored a hat-trick with goals in the 37th, 41st and 48th minutes of the match.

It was the Red and Gold brigade which opened the scoring when Penn Orji tapped in an easy finish after the original shot from Tolgay Ozbey was saved by Chirag Kerala custodian Sharath Kuniyil.

In the 32nd minute, Ozbey scored a brilliant individual goal dribbling past two defenders from the midfield and then placing the ball past Sharath to double the lead.

Chirag Kerala started their comeback when David Sunday got the ball beat Gurvinder Singh and Sandip Nandi the goalkeeper with a left footer.

Sunday capitalised on mistakes from the East Bengal defence to score a low header to restore parity for the visitors.

Changing over, Sunday completed a sensational hat-trick scoring after beating defender Uga Okpara and Nandi with his shot. There was another twist in the story as Tolgay scored his second of the match when a Soumik Dey corner came to Ukpara who took a shot and the deflection fell to Tolgay for a volley into the goal.

Robin Singh completed the scoring frenzy when he scored the match winner in the 77th minute when he placed home a grounded cross from the right from Orji.

The win takes East Bengal to 44 points from 23 matches while Chirag Kerala stay on 17 points from 23 matches. A victory for Mumbai FC in their last match will guarantee Chirag Kerala is relegated.