FARIDABAD: Delhi squandered several chances and left inexplicable gaps in the defence as a spirited Jammu and Kashmir rode on Ishfaq Ahmed's hat-trick to score a 3-1 win in the Cluster VII opening league match in the National football championship, for the Santosh Trophy, here on Friday.

Brief but heavy showers, two hours before the start of the match, was no reason for Delhi to limp on a heavy field at the Sector 12 Sports Complex. The entire unit looked disjointed under an early onslaught and just could not recover.

"We missed three open chances. Our defence was in disarray and an in-form Sumit Thapa just could not control the wing," is how Delhi coach Anadi Barua summed up.

"We had them in control towards the end, but there was no reason for stopper-back Pushpender Kundu to deliberately handle the ball in the box," said Barua of the last minute spot kick that sealed Delhi's fate.

Good strike

Dempo striker Ishfaq Ahmed was the key that left Delhi in shambles. After frittering away a few good moves, Rizwan Sheikh sent a feeble cross from the right of the box for Ishfaq in the middle. Though stopper-backs Kundu and Prasant Jaggi had Ishfaq sized up, he dribbled nicely before sending the ball from in-between the two for the lead in the 28th minute.

Substitute Ashish Ghildiyal provided some succour for Delhi when his long cross to striker Trilok Singh Bisht was tapped in by the latter in the 41st minute.

Delhi's joy was short-lived as Ishfaq baffled Delhi with the ease with which he scored his second goal. He collected the ball at about 40 yards from the post, cut across one defender and on seeing the onrushing goalkeeper Vikrant Sharma and two defenders still out of his reach, Ishfaq sent a neat lob for the lead at the stroke of half time.

An early injury in the second half to defender Arun Malhotra forced J & K to change its strategy. International striker Mehrajuddin Wadoo was pulled back into defence and he kept feeding the forward-line.

Towards the end, J & K showed slight complacency but escaped without any damage. Ishfaq earned a corner in the 88th minute to set J & K on to a facile win. Kundu was the culprit, handling the outgoing ball and then contending with the referee (Raghunath Gosavi) that the ball had crossed the line.

As the referee pointed towards the spot, Delhi's assistant coach started shouting forcing the referee to give him marching orders. Ishfaq completed the formalities with a confident right-footer.

The second match between Railways and Orissa was abandoned owing to heavy rain and soggy ground conditions. The match will be played on Saturday.

At Gurgaon Sports Complex, Manipur defeated Himachal Pradesh 3-0 in a Cluster V match. The scorers for Manipur were T. Narendra Meetei (14th minute), Th. Bungo Singh (31st) and M. Bijen Singh (91st).

In another Cluster V match, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh played out a 1-1 draw. Deepangshu Mazumder put Chhattisgarh ahead in the 18th minute before Mohammed Qiler brought Andhra on level in the 43rd minute.

Saturday's fixtures:

At Faridabad: Tamil Nadu v Tripura, Railways v Orissa, Uttaranchal v Jharkhand.

At Gurgaon: Karnataka v Gujarat.

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