Northern Ireland looks bound for the playoffs among the eight best group runners-up after winning 3-0 in San Marino. Former all-rounder Madan Lal has his fingers crossed before the start of the season. They scored both tackle and raid points and inflicted an all out on Patna with just two minutes to go in the match. They also agreed not to increase their wages bills and substantially to reduce transfer spending for the subsequent two seasons. Sushil, who was in Paris as the government observer, said the team should have returned to India instead. While Gambhir was not available for a comment, Bhaskar remained largely non-committal on this issue. Even then, a win looked highly improbable until the last five minutes in which Bengal turned the game on its head. At Chelsea, the pair is once again expected to dominate the crucial midfield battle. We have given everything to the players now and there shouldn’t be an excuse that ‘we didn’t get this, we didn’t get that’. The panel is confident that he will do a better job this season,” Madan Lal added.