HHIL Match 13: David Harte gives majesty to Mumbai Magicians

Invincible and impregnable, Mumbai Magicians’ goalie David Harte matched move by move of his counter part Fransisco Cortes to earn two points for his side on Tuesday here in Ranchi.

Mumbai struck through Trent Mitton which evened out earlier lone goal by Justin Reid-Ross, as the contest ended 1-1 at Ranchi.

When the goal posts came in the way much part of the match, denying Prabhjot Singh twice and Ashley Jackson once in his penalty corner strike, David Harte stole the heart of full stadium stands with a flurry of saves, especially the stroke taken by Ashley Jackson in the 60th minute when the score was 1-1, and the conversion could have given his rivals full five points.

The 25-year old Irishman jumped to his right and extended his stick to deny Ashley Jackson the stroke conversion, which was undoubtedly an easy one for the hosts.

Mumbai got its first chance to go up when it got a penalty corner in the 12th minute, but Gurjinder missed.

He would again miss two more in the day, but the first goal for the Mumbai came when Cortes blocked his strong flick, but Trent Mitton bounced on to the hard rebound. This goal came six minutes after Harte had to concede a strange goal coming from the stick of Justin Reid Ross.

Gurjinder’s hard push off a penalty corner hit the left post, and sped pass across the goalmouth and got hit on the other post before bouncing into the net.

Lucky goal for the hosts, who used all tricks in the trade not to let their supportive crowd down, but they could not hold on to this slender lead for next six minutes.

Prabhot Singh twice got the taste of left post, when his close flicks got deflected. He was again a culprit when Sarvanjit fed him from top of D, but he swept the ball so slow the goalie spotted and deflected. IN the third quarter, he was served with a parallel pass from Ravi Pal, but was a bit late in putting the stick across the flight of the ball, again a goal missed.

Prabhjot Singh was all over the D, had good chances to put his side up, but was a bit rusty and slack in anticipation to let go the chances.

On the other hand, Vikas Pillay’s superb penalty corner defence and Rahim Razie’s general alert moves to thwart Ranchi’s troublesome forwards came to the fore, as also all round ability of Ranchi Rhinos’s Brendera Lakra.

Ashley Jackson was in full flow, but somehow could not provide finish to his good moves upfront, capping his miss in the penalty stroke.

Mumbai, playing their fourth match, managed not to lose first time, and only pick up from here.

PR Sreejesh, a $48k goalie was rested today against $11k Harte, a risk taken by Kaushik that paid him off in the end.

Harte was declared Man of the Match, while Trent Mitton got the Hero Goal of the match award.