High-flying Bengal wallop Uttar Pradesh 7-0 in Santosh Trophy

Kolkata: Bengal demolished Uttar Pradesh 7-0 on Monday to notch up their second successive win in the Santosh Trophy qualifying stage at the Kalyani stadium, thus virtually assuring themselves of their progress to the final round of the tournament.

Both Robi Handsa (4 goals) and Manotos Maji (3) netted hat-tricks as Sanjoy Sen’s side made it a one-way traffic against Uttar Pradesh right at the outset.

In the day’s earlier match, Jharkhand — who lost 0-4 to Bengal two days ago — defeated Bihar 5-3.

With 11 goals and two wins in their kitty, Bengal under Sen are now comfortably placed at the top of Group C while Jharkhand and Bihar have 3 points each. In the final group match on Wednesday, the hosts take on Bihar, who have a minus-1 goal difference and need to win by a massive margin to keep their hopes alive.

Only the group champion will progress to the final round.

Although happy with another big win and a clean sheet, Sen kept his feet on the ground. “The job is not over yet. If we can finish the group engagements with three big wins, it will be a psychological boost for the boys. We want to keep the momentum going against Bihar as well,” the Bengal coach said after the match.

Robi — who scored a brace against Jharkhand — opened the floodgates against Uttar Pradesh in the 8th minute. Manotos then took over, completing his hat-trick in the first half itself, scoring in 11, 17 and 37 minutes. With Robi adding to the tally in the 33rd minute, Bengal went into the break with a handsome 5-0 lead.

Robi completed his hat-trick three minutes after the restart and wrapped things up with his fourth goal in the 83rd minute.



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