Indian Bank trounces Southern Railway in the CFA Senior Division League

Immanuel and Elavarasan scored two goals each while Pravitto added another to inflict a morale-shattering loss on the Railwaymen. 

This is Indian Bank’s third win in four matches and the result gives the bank team some much-needed momentum ahead of its crucial match against Viva Chennai on Friday. Earlier, Income Tax, helped by a brace from H Ameeruddeen, defeated RBI 2-0. Indian Bank started piling on the misery on Southern Railway from as early as the 17th minute when Immanuel opened the bank team’s account. 

In the next 10 minutes, two more goals were added to effectively seal the contest. The railway team struggled to create any chances in either half and its defence was slipshod. The bank team’s forwards, Jude Felix and Elavarsan, were in an unforgiving mood and made the best use of their opponent’s crumbling defence. Indian Bank went into the break with a healthy lead of 3-0. The bank team’s scoring spree continued in the second-half as well when it added two goals in the space of 10 minutes to cap off a memorable evening. 

Southern Railway manager, V Soundarrajan, was gracious in defeat and admitted that his team’s ambition this year would be to avoid relegation. “We were outplayed by a superior team. It didn’t help that our key midfielder Charles Anandraj played the match with a niggle. Before our next match, we are hoping to rope in three defenders to strengthen our defence. Hopefully, that will enable us to get some points,” said the 54-year-old. 

Soundarrajan also suggested that in the light of growing dominance of the private teams, there should be a separate league for the institutional teams. Meanwhile, his counterpart Syed Sabir Pasha praised his team’s effort and said he was glad to see a team awash with local players and with limited resources get off the blocks so quickly.