Helped by an own goal from captain of the Indian polo team, Uday Kalaan, the Mango Bay Barbados team of Teddy Williams, Richard Gooding, Philip Tempro and Danny Atwell made a clean sweep of the EFG Haryana Indian three-match polo tournament in the final at the Lion Castle polo grounds on Sunday.
After being soundly beaten in the two previous matches, the visitors were looking to avenge those losses, but came up against a determined Mango Bay team that matched their aggressive style of play to come away with a hard fought 6-41?2 and a half victory to sweep the series 3-0.
Barbados signalled their intention from the opening chukka when Danny Atwell blasted two unanswered goals through the uprights of the Indian goal bars to end the first chukka ahead, 2-0.
However, in the second chukka the Indians found their rhythm and returned the compliment by clipping two back in quick succession to level the score.
Barbados then bounced back to take the lead in the dying minutes of the chukka when Atwell caught them napping and scored his third goal of the match.
On resumption, Richard Gooding got into the action with a well executed goal after receiving a pass from his teammate Philip Tempro to move the score to 4-2 for Team Barbados.
Moments later, in a mad scramble for ball possession in an effort to clear the ball away from immediate danger, Barbados increased the lead when the ball was deflected off the mallet of Kalaan and went over the line.
Sensing the game slipping away from them, the Indians started to become more aggressive in their attacks and were able to pull a goal back in the final minute of the third chukka.
The final chukka saw them launching an all-out attack on the Barbadian defence, but the locals were equal to the task and matched them stride for stride, resulting in one goal being scored by each team at the end of a bruising battle by all eight players.
The tournament brought the curtain down for visiting teams for the 2014 season but there are still a number of local matches left for the remaining of the season. (CH)
