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[caption id="attachment_19513" align="alignnone" width="580"] East Bengal beat Bhawanipur 2-1 in the CFL opener today. Xtra Time[/caption] Kalyani: East Bengal beat Bhawanipur FC in their opening match of the CFL campaign by a margin of 2-1 in Kalyani today. Jiten Murmu (18') opened the scoring for the Red and Gold brigade but Orok Orok Essien (31') equalised for Bhawanipur before Man of the match Dika (53') scored the winning goal for East Bengal. East Bengal began well putting pressure on the inexperienced defensive line-up of Bhawanipur FC and got the early goal in the 18th minute from Do-Dong Hyun cross which feathered through Rafique head before youngster Jiten Murmu made no mistake to curl into the net to make it 1-0. Conceding an early goal into the match, Bhawanipur looked desperate for an equaliser and the Red and Gold defensive line faced some hiccups in the middle of the first half. However, the Debjit Ghosh coached side managed to score the equaliser in the 31st minute from a counter-attack by Orok Orok Essien who fooled the duo of Calum Angus and Gurwinder Singh. It will be better not to talk much about East Bengal defense as the woes continue this season too for the fans at least what was seen from the first match. They could have conceded much more goals if the opposition were strong but inexperience Bhawanipur failed to convert the half chances and missed certain sitters. In the second half East Bengal coach Trevor Morgan changed his tactics a bit and this helped him get an early lead in the 53rd minute courtesy a goal from Dika through an Abinash Ruidas center and that broke the jinx for the Red and Gold brigade as they kept on attacking and Dika finally got that goal which was the final goal of the match and the winner too. Trevor replaced Dika with Bikash Jairu as he wanted to inject fresh legs who can play with more speed and power in the wings. Few minutes later, East Bengal were close to get their third one but Rafique missed it by inches. After quite a while, Nikhil Poojary was introduced in place of Jiten Murmu, which was his first match in the Red and Gold jersey but the youngster did not look nervous at all as he made some clinical moves and through passes to Abinash Ruidas. Abinash was electrical for East Bengal in the midfield today as he kept on changing and attacking which surprised  Bhawanipur defense. His wing play was terrific and Abinash should have been the deserving candidate for the Man of the match award. Although the match ended with the scoreline in favour of East Bengal 2-1, but the performance of East Bengal team as a whole and specially the defensive line will keep Morgan thinking before the match on Sunday against Peerless SC and hope he will try to sort out the issues with the defense as soon as possible. At the post match press conference, Trevor Morgan was asked about team's short of strikers but the gaffer repled in a very sporting way, "I do not have positive strikers like Chidi and Ranti but I will not cry for that. I will fight with whatever resources I have and will try to give my best with whatever I have." Regarding Calum Angus's performance, Trevor tried to hide him and said, "He is playing a competitive match after a gap of 8 months and it will take time for him to adjust.  I have faith in him as well as Gurwinder and their combination will grow up gradually as this is the right combination for me in the defensive line. Still I would say, the way we conceded that goal it would not have happened." Bhawanipur coach Debjit Ghosh slammed his team for losing points in every match. He fumed saying, "I am surprised with my team's performance. If we keep on losing points like this in a small league, it will difficult for us to be in a good position." Regarding Calum Angus's performance Debjit said, "East Bengal best stopper line at the moment is the duo of Arnab and Gurwinder." Debjit did not want to comment on Angus's stay in East Bengal till the I-League as he just said, "Delhi is far away right now."