Bengaluru FC suffer opening day defeat to Kerala Blasters FC in ISL
Kochi (PTI): It was a season-opener to forget for the former champions Bengaluru FC who suffered a 1-2 defeat to Kerala Blasters FC in the Indian Super League, here on Thursday.
Two defensive errors from Bengaluru (Veendorp OG 52', Luna 70') is what consigned Simon Grayson's men to defeat.
New signing Curtis Main, who was a second half substitute, scored a late goal (90'), but the Blues couldn't stage the comeback they needed.
The Blasters kicked off proceedings with Bengaluru fielding as many as four debutants in their eleven.
Slavko Damjanovic, Jessel Carneiro, Keziah Veendorp and Ryan Williams got their first competitive minutes in a BFC shirt.
Gurpreet Singh Sandhu led Bengaluru out in the absence of Sunil Chhetri, who is away on national duty to the Asian Games.
The Blues' closest chance came in the 35th minute, when Naorem Roshan Singh's long-distance effort caught Sachin Suresh off guard.
But the Kerala goalkeeper managed to parry it away for a corner, as both teams walked down the tunnel at half time with no goals to show for.
The start of the second half saw the momentum shift back Kerala's way.
Peprah came close to scoring in the 52nd minute but Gurpreet managed to fist the ball out.
It was from the resulting corner that the hosts found the lead, with the ball coming off Veendorp's head and past Gurpreet.
Grayson turned to his bench in the 65th minute to try and change things as Curtis Main, Javi Hernandez and Parag Shrivas came on for Aleksandar Jovanovic, Keziah Veendorp and Namgyal Bhutia.
Just when Bengaluru looked to brush away the setback, another error in defence this time from Gurpreet gifted Kerala their second goal of the night.
Picking up a pass from Damjanovic, the Bengaluru goalkeeper got a heavier touch to the ball than he would have liked. An onrushing Luna got to the ball in a flash, before rolling it into an empty net and making it 2-0.
Monirul Molla and Harsh Patre came on for Sivasakthi Narayanan and Rohit Kumar in the 77th minute of the game as Bengaluru looked to find a way back.
Main ate into Kerala's lead late into the game with a simple finish, sparking some hope of a revival.
The fourth official added on seven minutes as Bengaluru continued their search for an equaliser, but it wasn't to be for the Blues who now travel to Kolkata where they play Mohun Bagan Super Giant on Wednesday.
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Simran Singh, radio jockey with 7 lakh followers on Instagram, dies by suicide in Gurugram
Gurugram, Dec 26: Simran Singh, a popular freelance radio jockey from Jammu and Kashmir with nearly seven lakh followers on Instagram, allegedly committed suicide in her rented house in Sector 47 here, police said on Thursday.
Her body was found hanging in her room on Wednesday night, they said, adding no suicide note was found from the spot.
The Instagram profile of Simran, known by her fans as "Jammu Ki Dhadkan", shows she last posted a reel on December 13, police said.
According to police, Simran who had 6,82,000 followers on Instagram lived on rent with other friends in house number 58 of Sector 47 here for the last several months.
Sunil Kumar, SHO of Sadar police station, said that they got information at around 9:30pm on Wednesday by a Simran's friend who was staying in the same house.
A police team reached the spot and found the Simran's room locked from inside. The team broke open the door of the room and found her hanging, the SHO said.
Her family members, who reached here after being informed about the incident, said that she was upset for some time, he said.
"We handed over the body to the family members after the postmortem today. A probe is underway," the SHO added.
