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ShareMumbai: Mahindra United played out a fourth consecutive draw after Viva Kerala put up an inspiring performance to hold the hosts to a 1-1 draw in the I-League round seven match played at the Cooperage football ground on Friday.
In fact, Mahindra were lucky not to lose, considering the manner in which they played. Not many had fancied Kerala to gain much out of the contest, but a remarkably listless show by Mahindra helped them collect their first away point. Kerala's Thai import Wisoot Bunpeng put the visitors ahead in the 29th minute but Mohammad Rafi put Mahindra on level terms in the 54th.
Before this match, Mahindra coach David Booth had stressed the importance of converting scoring opportunities. But Friday's performance has left Booth flabbergasted.
"There is no explanation for our performance today. We trained well entire week and had a full strength team. I don't know what went wrong, we were lucky not to lose," Booth said.
The hosts were outplayed for most of the 90 minutes by promoted side. Though the second half was better in terms of the efforts they made to breach Kerala's defence, the Jeepmen perhaps played worst 45 minutes of football of the season during the first session.
Ever since Steven Dias limped out of the field in the 23rd minute - after a harsh tackle by Sakeer MP - Mahindra's right flank was inactive. Dias' absence meant there was no one for Mahindra who could play aerial balls in the opposition's box effectively and the dead ball situations were not threatening enough.
NP Pradeep did his best to fill in for his India teammate but the nearest he came was when he hit the woodwork from a freekick in the dying stage - an attempt that could have won Mahindra the match.
Kerala, on the other hand, have been showing improvement with every match. They began confidently and did not allow their opponents - who with six national team players looked far superior side on paper - to dictate.
After a sluggish start, where both teams cancelled each other out in the middle, Kerala took a shock lead in the 29th minute. A Sakeer corner from the right was headed across the face of the goal by Charles Ozisha which was coolly slotted home by Bunpeng.
Mahindra equalised after eight minutes in thesecond half when their Keralite duo Pradeep and Rafi combined with the former's free-kick being headed in by the latter.
