Imphal: India B (Manipur) trounced Indian Navy 18-1 in the 1st ground and UK defeated USA 8-3 in the 2nd ground on the fourth day of the Manipur Polo International 2022 organised by the Manipur horse Riding and Polo Association at Mapal Kangjeibung on Friday.
In the 1st match, the local boys completely outplayed the Indian Navy team as the score line indicates. The way the match started, it seemed the Indian Navy team was going to give a tough fight to the local boys as they were the first to draw blood in the 1.32nd minute through Cdr AK Panchal in the 1st chukkar. But shortly after the Manipur team opened its account and pumped in as many as six goals in this chukkar. T Pradeepkumar, P Ojit and Atangba scored two goals apiece.
In the 2nd chukkar Manipur fired in five more goals with Atangba scoring thrice and P Ojit twice while the Indian Navy team failed to score a single goal. At the end of the 2nd chukkar, the score line read 11-1 in favour of Manipur.
Manipur continued to dominate the game completely in the 3rd and 4th chukkar also with hardly any fight back from the Navy team. L Rohit who came in place of Atangba, added three goals and Pradeepkumar one more for Manipur in the 3rd chukkar the Navy team failed to reduce the margin, ending the 3rd chukkar 15-1 in favour of Manipur. In the last chukkar, Manipur scored three more goals through Rohit (two) and Pradeep (one) and with the Indian Navy once again failing to score in this chukkar, the match ended with Manipur winning with a huge margin of 18-1.
The match between the USA and the UK in the 2nd ground was very important for both the teams as whoever wins would have a fair chance of making it to the finals.
Until the 3rd chukkar, the match was keenly fought and the teams were evenly poised, but the UK team suddenly changed gears in the last chukkar and ran away with the match.
While UK scored in the 5.20th minute of the 1st chukkar through Phil sellers, the USA team drew a blank and in the 2nd chukkar JP Varquez scored for the USA in the 5.03rd minutes while the UK team went goalless.
In the 2nd chukkar, Harry Tucker and Phil Seller scored for the UK team while Jorge Varquez and Will Boland scored for the USA to end the chukkar with a score line of 3-3.
In the final chukkar it was the UK team all the way as it fired in as many as five goals with Harry Tucker who was in devastating form scoring thrice and the captain George Amore once and another goal in favour of the UK team as penalty number 1 without any reply. The match ended 8-3 in favour of the UK.
