Kozhikode, Kerala: Having played six home games on the trot, Real Kashmir FC earned a vital point away from home at Gokulam Kerala FC in their second away fixture of the season on Saturday.
Pritam Singh opened the scoring for Gokulam Kerala FC on the 20th minute but the visitors came back strongly in the second half to equalise on the 69th minute, when Surchandra Singh scored his third goal of the season from an acute angle.
Following the result, Real Kashmir sent Churchill Brothers FC Goa to the third spot with 14 points from eight matches, while Gokulam Kerala replaced Quess East Bengal on the sixth spot with 10 points from eight matches.
Coming back from a humongous 6-1 win against Lajong, David Robertson opted to field an unchanged starting lineup in their second away fixture this Hero I-League season.
Bino George made as many as five changes to the starting lineup including giving Joel Sunday his debut for the Keralite outfit. While Joel Sunday replaced another foreigner Mudda Musa, Rashid K and Pritam Singh came in for Bodo and Rajesh S in attack. Dimple Bhagat filled in for Deepak K, and Arnab Das Sharma took the charge under the woodwork, replacing Shibinraj.
Gokulam Kerala who were at the receiving end in their last fixture against Quess East Bengal, started on full throttle to make the amends in front of the home crowd.
On the 10th minute, Arjun Jayaraj came close to finding the back of the net but his right-footer ricocheted off the post. Seven minutes later, on the other side of the pitch, Loveday leapt above others to connect to a looping corner but it went off target.
Pritam Singh took another three minutes to open the scoreline for the hosts to send the crowd into a rapture. The midfielder took on his own to hurl the attack from the middle and before goalkeeper Bilal Khan could reach on time, he chipped it into the goal.
After conceding the goal, Real Kashmir tried every bit to restore the parity but Ortiz and Castro played a significant role to keep them at bay.
After the changeover, Robertson replaced Nagen Tamang with Ritwik Das to instil some versatility in the attacking front and it paid some dividends in bits and pieces for the visitors.
Loveday once again tried his luck but before he could get something out of it, Arnab Das Sharma snatched it on time. In the 69th minute, Surchandra Singh stunned the Kerala crowd having scored the equaliser from an acute angle inside the penalty box.
Both coaches used their substitutes in the dying minutes of the match but both defences stood tall to deny the attackers until the final whistle.
Gokulam Kerala will now fly to Cuttack to challenge the Indian Arrows on 21st December whereas Real Kashmir FC will go to Coimbatore to clash their swords with table-toppers Chennai City FC on the next day.
(I-League Media)