No one won the two-and-a-half-hour Abahani-Mohamedan match! – 2024-03-31 01:01:44

The Abahani Limited-Mohammedan Sporting match meant excitement of a different kind. Be it in any sport. The match between the two arch-rivals was full of excitement in the first round of the Premier Hockey League on Saturday. The 60-minute match ended after almost two and a half hours. No team won after that. Both teams left the field with a 1-1 draw.

The game started 15 minutes after the scheduled time at the Maulana Bhasani Stadium on Saturday. The match also started late as two foreign umpires were late to the field. At the beginning of the match, the players, officials and umpires of the two teams observed a minute’s silence for the soul of late former Acting General Secretary Mohammad Yusuf. Within five minutes of the start of the match, Rakibul Hasan’s field goal led Abahani. Mohammedan’s Amirul Islam scored in the 33rd minute to equalize 1-1.
After that, the players of both teams became desperate for victory. The umpire whistled for a foul two minutes before the end of the game. The Mohammedan players got angry with this. It was later overruled on review. The game is stopped for 10 minutes. A foul committed by Mohammedan 58 seconds before the end of the match stopped the game for another 30 minutes. Then when the game started, Mohammedan got a penalty in the last second. But the umpire gave the final whistle. Mohammedan objected to that too. It takes another 10 minutes to score that penalty. Thus the game started at 3:30 but ended at 6:00 pm.

After the game, Mohammedan captain Russell Mahmud Jimi said, ‘The third umpire Salim Lucky is the root of the game. Even if the Federation spends 55,000 rupees and buys a machine for viewing reviews, he does not see it clearly. However, Abahani’s manager Mahbub Haroon pointed the finger of accusation directly at the Mohammedan players. In his words, ‘this state of the match is due to two Mohammedan players.’

After 9 matches, Abahani’s collection is now 25 points. They are the top team in the table. On the other hand, Mohammedan collected 20 points after 8 matches. The team is third in the table.