Bangladesh cross India hurdle

Bangladesh managed a hard-fought solitary goal victory over India in their third match of the SAFF U-17 Women's Championship held today (Friday) at Birshreshtha Shaheed Sepoy Mohammad Mostafa Kamal Stadium in the city's Kamalapur, reports BSS.

With the day's victory, Bangladesh stay on course of the championship with six points from three matches while India remained at their previous collection of three points, but played less than one match to Bangladesh.

Table topper Russia are in a comfortable position at the moment with six points from two outings.

Bangladesh will now play their last match of the championship against Nepal scheduled to be held on 28 March at the same venue.

On the other hand, it was not all over yet for India because they have still two matches to play in the championship. India will play their third match against Bhutan on Sunday (26 March) and meet Russia in their last match on 28 March.

In the first half, both the teams launched some attacks and counter attacks, but failed to convert any of those into a goal.

After the resumption, both the teams were desperately trying to break the deadlock and Bangladesh's best moment came in the 74th minute through a suicidal goal. Ahila Rajan made the hara-kiri as she wanted to foil an attempt of Bangladesh with a header from the goal-mouth melee, but the ball mistakenly went to their own net.

India however tried heart and soul to stage a fight back creating some scoring chances, but failed to convert any of those into a goal in the remaining proceeding and they had to leave the field with empty hand.

Bangladesh, ranked 140 in FIFA ranking, earlier thrashed lowly Bhutan by 8-1 goals in their tournament opening match. The host side however slipped as they suffered a 0-3 goal defeat to Russia in their second match.

India, the strongest team in the region ranked 61st in FIFA ranking also a favorite side of the tournament, earlier defeated defending champions Nepal by 4-1 goals in their tournament's opening match, rode on a brilliant hat-trick by forward Shilji Shaji.