It was an electric atmosphere once again at Royal Park in Parkville as Essendon India lost out to the Pakistan Shaheens in the last round of the tournament, this time in a more closely fought competition.

The match started with the Indian Captain Sudip Chakraborty going out with a broken arm in the first few minutes of the game. Even though Essendon India scored the first goal but the Shaheens came back strongly and took the lead. The trend continued and at half time Pakistan Shaheens were comfortably ahead. 

However, it was all Essendon India after half time as they kicked a couple of goals without counter as the rain poured down and made the playing conditions really hard. But it was too little too late for the Indians as Pakistan Shaheens secured the victory 6-7-43 to 4-2-26. However there is some confusion over the final score as according to Indian management and support staff present at the ground Indian got a behind registered instead of a goal they scored and on the other side Pakistan got a goal registered instead of a behind they scored. That scores would look really crunch if that was the case in real.

The four goals for India were scored by – Darius Fernandes (2), Ashish Sharma and Akash Malhotra, with Abdul Ashraf, Amar Bara and Sudip Rajbanshi putting in a great show on field as well. 

There was a lot of support for both the countries as a lot of people had come out to support their own nations. There were few neutrals at the ground as well who had come to savour the atmosphere of this high voltage clash.

The tournament didn’t end on a positive note for the Essendon Indian team for sure without a victory on the cards, but the coaches and supporters who have been following the team for long thought this was the best International Cup for the Indian as the margins for the game were really close compared to previous tournaments. Specially the games against the Pakistan Shaheens, which could have gone either way was a huge improvement from the 70 odd points margin defeat they had to face against them in IC14 when the met for the first time. 

The Essendon Indian team would also like to thank its sponsors Essendon Football Club, Air India, Boots For All and Jeeta Caterers, who helped the Indian team to come out to Australia and put up a good show.