Nima Tamang gave United Sikkim the lead in the 13th minute before ONGC equalised through Sachin Gawas in the 24th minute.
Before the match, a two-minute silence was observed as a mark of respect to the Delhi girl, the victim of a gang rape, who died in Singapore today.
As expected, it was a battle of attrition between two teams fighting to avert relegation. There were a lot of hard tackles and USFC's defender Sandesh Jhingan was stretchered off with a ligament injury.
ONGC's defender Robin Gurung also limped off with a hamstring injury and Hassan Mohd Adeola was injured on the hand.
Both goalkeepers, 23-year-old T P Rehnesh of ONGC and the South Korean Yoon Tae of USFC were outstanding and made some outstanding saves.
Rehnesh tipped over a Linekar Machado header from close range in the last quarter of the match. Just before the final whistle, Yoon Tae advanced and narrowed the angle to thwart a pile driver by Eric P Brown. Yoon Tae was chosen as man of the match for his daring saves.
United Sikkim coach Nathan Hall was happy with the result but ONGC's coach Santosh Kashyap felt that two points were lost by this draw.
ONGC are now on 11 points from 13 matches while USFC are on nine points with one win and six draws from 13 matches. MORE