Pic - : This is how the communication occurs when SUDDEN DEATH and EXTRA TIME takes place simultaneously
Indian Hockey ::
Sudden Death Or Extra Time
Finally this would be the ONE but, last of my article on Indian Hockey. Here in
this web page, I have already finished writing twenty articles on Indian Hockey
and this would make it the last of them all. Maybe I would write ONE more to
finish up my article on Hockey.
I would completely focus of the reason where and why the Indian
Hockey failed and what was the reason for it. Secondly I would focus on what
are the exact things to be done and ought to be done to bring it to the
parallel where the Hockey stands. Finally what are one or two things needed
most as a change that the World that rules and runs the Hockey ought to bring.
I shall start one by one first to point where and what were the reasons and the
point where Indian Hockey failed.
The very first reason is Indian Hockey from 1956 was DIVIDED
into THREE parts. The First was the Punjab domination in India Hockey. All of a
sudden with Mr Balbir Singh Senior finding that groove it was imagined that
Punjab is the HEART of Indian Hockey , and it was an idea which was all wrong
but here at India that was the feeling that surfaced.
Balbir Singh Senior was a GREAT Hockey player. However he
became GREAT because of - :
1 ). K.D.Singh Babu who made him GREAT. K.D.Singh Babu was
as GREAT as Roop Singh or Major Dhyanchand. Balbir Singh Senior was nowhere near his ability. However
at the London Olympics and as in the Helsinki Olympics , K.D.Singh Babu as per
the advice given to him by Major Dhyanchand gave away his scoring abilities.
Babu could have played in the Centre Forward position where Balbir Singh played.
But upon the advice of Major Dhyanchand on the tour of East Africa, Dhyanchnad
looking into the future of Indian Hockey, advised Babu to either play at the
outside right or in the inside right so that he keeps on opening goal scoring
opportunities for India and if he plays in those position the Indian team will benefit
by sky. Babu gave up his ambition to score but to create and it was Balbir
Singh Senior who kept on scoring and earning those names. Else K.D. Singh Babu
would have been the Dhyanchand of post Independence era , a title which Balbir
Singh Senior walked away with.
Balbir Singh could not have been Balbir Singh Senior at all
in Hockey again if he did not have Raghbir Singh Bhola , a Rajagopal or a Ali
Zafar to help him out there in the Forward line. These three players gave up
their ambition and provided all the opportunities to Balbir Singh Senior to do
and redo what makes the team to win the Gold. They provided all the passes and
in gushes and galores for balbir Singh to become Balbir Singh Senior in Hockey.
That was the actual reason but the Indian Hockey read it wrongly to assume that
Balbir Singh Senior was the lone reason
for all that ws happening in Indian Hockey. They read it wrong inferring that
Punjab was something like the MAGIC of Indian Hockey. That wrong feeling was
injected into the mind of the I.H.F and all of a sudden there were a flood of
Hockey players that came out from Sansarpur from Punjab. It was again interfered
that these players from Sansarpur were the real BLOOD of Indian Hockey. That again
was a mistake.
There were players that were emerging out of the Sundergah
area of Orissa . Major Dhaynchand was in charge of the coaching assignment at
Orissa . The Sundergarh area of Orissa was throwing excellent adivasis that
were playing Hockey. These were not considered any hockey players at all. The
reason was tthese adivasis were in fact somewhat different in their walking,
eating and talking and were not educated at all to somehow make the people to
understand that they were somewhat not fit to be considered something like the
society accepted entity. That was the place where the Indian Hockey started thinking
wrongly. There were some excellent Muslims who had started emerging from either
Uttar Pradesh from the Gorakhpur area and from the Bhopal-Indore-Gwalior area
but the same logic and the non acceptance of the Muslim to be as true to the
Hindus for their motherland and a kind of that a kind of notion made these
Adivasis and the Muslims to be neglected and that was evidently seen in Hockey.
Many a good adivasi and Muslim players were not picked up for the Indian team.
It went a long process and a long way which completely curbed the Indian
Hockey. THAT WAS NOT SEEN IN THE PAKISTAN HOCKEY TEAM. In the 1960 Olympics at
Rome , a player by the name of KIDDIE was playing at the deep defense of Pakistan
and he completely blocked the moving Indian Forward who at times were trying to
penetrate the Pakistani defense in that game. He was a Adivasi but a Christian
adivasi and he was mainly responsible for Pakistan to stand up to the Indian
pressure at Rome. That was the difference in the mental thinking. India itself
DESTRUCTED the Indian Hockey.
2). Many players from Punjab chosen to represent India from
1960 to about 1984 were not at all fit to be considered of anywhere near to the
class and the standard of the World Hockey then. They were either working for
the Punjab police or the B.S.F Jullundur. The connation and the connection, of these two institution with Punjab winning
the national Hockey tournament on most of the occasion made the Indian Hockey
think tank to feel that the BEST of the players that play Hockey at India are
from Punjab. That is why Punjab keeps on winning that championship. The reason
was though the other institution or the states were not winning it was as a
complete team they were not possessing that kind of many a players for them to
win the team championship but on an individual basis there were many who were
far better than the one’s who were playing for Punjab and who were not upto
that standard required to represent India.
Pics :: Some representation of the examples of the " MIX " of SUDDEN-DEATH and EXTRA TIME related to the PSYCHOLOGY that is related to the game.
I can state one example. There was a player by the name of
Frank who played for India in the 1966 Asian games at the left-Half position.
He did not allow even a SINGLE Pakistani player and even a single player from
any other team to get past him in the entire tournament. He was included I the
side at the insistence of goalkeeper Shankar Laxman who was leading the side
and it was Laxman who insisted that he wanted Frank at the left half position.
The kind of a game that Frank played was simply unbelievable. He was a stand
out in the entire Asian games 1966 for India in the entire continent of Asia
and that he proved by the kind of the game he played. Yet his name did not
figure in the list of the probable for the 1968 Olympics. His place went to a
Punjabi who was nowhere near the class of frank. This kind of a selection
hampered India’s progress . These were the major hindrances and handicap.
3). India and the Indian players were somewhat at loggerhead
with each other for some reason. Bengal by then was rising like a phoenix in
Hockey but it was because of the fact that the two famed Bengal club Mohun
Bagan and East Bengal had started bringing excellent Hockey players from
outside Bengal to play for the two clubs. In 1968 Inam –Ur-Rehman , Shahid Noor
and a Muslim player by the name of
Siddique joined Mohun Bagan and the trio made it to the Bengal team. Inam and Shahid
Noor and especially Inam –Ur-Rehman
singlehandedly took Bengal to the semis of the 1968 nationals. Siddique
from Uttar Pradesh was something to be
admired but he was not even called for the trials. Inam-Ur-Rehman found a place
but was not given any place and even a chance in the 1968 Mexico Olympic to
play even for a minute for India. That was something which was really
unacceptable to anybody and unexplainable. Back at home Inam Ur Rehman gave up playing Hockey
for India and formed the All India Indian Airlines team. What does the Airlines
do. IT FLIES AND FLIES HIGH. That is what Inam made the Airlines to do here at
India. With Ashok Kumar joining them from Mohun Bagan and with B.P.Govinda
joining the Indian Airlines from East Bengal there was a total and all together
a different Hockey that was seen at India . With Aslam Sher Khan joining the
Indian Airlines the things became very different for the Hockey in India but
when it came to the All India Hockey XI the things stood out what it stood in
the 1948, 1952, 1956, and 1960.That is why the Indian Hockey remained stagnant
and the other nation surged ahead.It was observed in 1968 where for the FIRST
time, India FAILED even to make it to the last four in the Olympics in Hockey
and from there the Indian Hockey completely went to the GUTTER and again from
there to the SEPTIC TANK or to the pits, but the eye were not opening for India
.YES- we won the World Cup in 1975 but that was MORE because of the Maharaja Of
Patiala and MORE ABOUT IT LATER OFCOURSE LATER.
4). The Astro Turf
came into the being immediately afterwards in 1975 after the World Cup Hockey
in 1975.
By 1980 there were about 1000 Astro Turf of different kind
and of different variety that was laid out at Holland for it’s hockey to move
and grow. There were about 100 laid at Germany and about three laid at east
Germany. There were about two laid out in Pakistan at Lahore and Karachi. HOWEVER THE FIRST ASTRO TURF WAS LAID OUT
AT INDIA IN 1981 FOR THE ASIAN GAMES THAT WAS TO BE HELD AT NEW DELHI. The WORLD was practicing and then coming to
play at the tournament proper and here in India it was the Indians who were
playing on the EARTH/MUD and was playing on these kind of surface at
abroad. HOW CAN YOU EXPECT A TEAM TO
ACHIEVE SOMETHING GREAT WHEN THERE WAS NOTHING GREAT GOING IN HOCKEY IN THE
ADMINISTRATION AT INDIA.
This EXTRA-TIME really DUG the Indian Hockey for ever just
like those EXTRA-TIME that KILLED Indian Hockey for ever at Mexico in 1968 or
at the Asian Games at Bangkok in 1970.In the 1970 Finals of the Asian games
where India and Pakistan locked the horns for 119 minutes before India was done
away by that SUDDEN DEATH goal, India in
a total of 40 Long Corners and penalty Corners did NOT score even ONE goal .
Mukbain Singh kept on missing ONE-AFTER-THE-ANOTHER. That again was repeated in
the semis of the 1972 Olympics at Munich. Mukhbain Singh DID NOT SCORE any of
the 18 penalty hits that he took. However Pakistan GOT ONE in the 1970 a clear
chance and TWO in the semis at Munich of which they scored. THAT WAS THE
DIFFEERNCE IN TERMS OF THE PERFECTNESS AND PRECISION THAT THEY MUSTERED AND
PLANNED PLAYING INDIA. India was RUDDERLESS and INEFFECTIVE in either of it’s
planning or execution because PERFECTNESS DID NOT FIND A PLACE IN THE INDIAN
HOCKEY AT LL. It was just to PLEASE this and PLEASE the other .This
OVER-PLEASANT – PERSONIFIED –HYSTERICAL Individuals were the reason from where
the Indian Hockey completely went into
the OBLIVIOUS- OBLIVION and the stage still exists.
In 1982 when the Champion Cup Hockey was staged at Holland
and where India won the BRONZE, the ONLY instance of India finishing at the
podium, after the tourney, it was Zafar
Iqbal who plainly said that looking into the way the Europeans have surged in
Hockey where Holland has so many Astro-Turf to practice . I DO NOT THINK WE
SHOULD BE PLAYING HOCKEY AT ALL. When Zafar said this, PLAINLY WE FELT THAT HIS
ENTIRE HOCKEY CAREER WOULD BE NULLIFIED TO PIECES FOR NEUTRALISATION without
even using the PHENOLTHOPLIEN .Strange we were happy to see that did not
happen. For had it happened everything in Indian Hockey would have been
finished and would have been over.
5). Balkishen Singh was the Coach of the Indian Hockey team
for the 1980 Olympics where in the absence of many a strong Hockey playing
nation, we won that GOLD. He was again in the charge of the Indian Hockey in
1984 for the Los Angeles Olympics. He brought in the 4-4-2 system.
In this system the TWO FULL BACKS ought to be 100%
specialist of the penalty corners. However Manohar Topno was NEVER and
NOUGHT. Vineet Kumar was SLOW and did
not possess that kind of a fall back or a recovery back to the position in
terms of the SPEED , and Topno was a stout defender and nothing more.
This has been the BANE of Indian Hockey. NEVER, I repeat,
NEVER did the Indian Hockey played with TWO – EQUAL- SPECIALIST deep defender
except the 1975 World Cup. Indian Hockey right from 1956 played with ONE of the
deep defender being a specialist in the Penalty corner and the other with the
quality of being a terrific defender who would not easily allow the ball to
pass by him. It was right from 1956 that it started and it continued in the
same fashion till about 1974 when Aslam Sher Khan and Surjit Singh together
played for India in the Asian games Hockey at Tehran in 1974 only to see their
pair being broken but again coming back together in 1975 and what they did to India at Kuala Lumpur in 1975 I a
HISTORY.
Exact was the opposite when Pakistan played between that
period. For an example, Pakistan had
Manuzur-Ul-Hasan and Tanveer Dar in and from the period of 1968 to about 1972,
thereafter came Munnawar-Uz-Zaman to continue it with Manzur-Ul-Hasan, .This
continued till 1978. Then along with Manzur came Quasim Zia and after Manzur Ul
Hasan left playing Hockey in 1985 for ever they had Ayaz Mehmood, Taqueer Dar
to assist Quasim Zia. The result was if Manzur was failing to convert those
penalty corners, then it would be Munnawar who would come in. Interchanging of
the penalty corner hits by them would give them a goal from the deep defenders.
Once they completed that quota the midfielders would rise to the occasion to
give them the goal from their position and thereafter it would be the Forwards
who would , ie the attackers who would do the same for their team. This also
was there with the other team as well to see. The Ian Bell – Hammond of
Australia, the Thies Kruize, Bob Baouman and thereafter the Paul Litjen- Bob
Bouman of Holland, the Michael Krause and Allan Stroeder of West Germany were the
prime example.
Here in the Indian Hockey there would be ONE who NOT-AT-ALL
would be the specialist as we would call them but who would be construed as
such. Mukhbain Singh was NEVER a
specialist but we made it. The other one Michael Kido was never given to test
his ware as he would stoutly defend. When you play with a 50% STRENGTH of
your deep defender to hit those penalty
corners you would get even LESS than 10 % of the result from the same. This
continued to plague the Indian Hockey and everybody could see that BUT BOT THE
INDIAN HOCKET THINK TANK from 1956 to 1975.That was the reason India could not
win any GOLD after 1956 in succession that it won from 1928 to 1956 in
succession. Take the example of the 1968 Olympics at Mexico. Gurbax Singh could
not convert even a single penalty corners out of the 21 hits he took. He was th
JOINT CAPTAIN of that indian Hockey team in the 1968 Mexico Olympics. His other
partner Prithipal Singh who was the Joint captain of that team had scored SEVEN
out of the seven are games he played in the entire Olympics. Comp[are it with Pakistan where Tanveer dar
and his other partner mixed scored 11 . In the finals Pakistan scored through
rashid Junior and Asad Mallik and but
the Australian goal was scored by their deep defender. THIS HAS BEEN THE
GREATEST HINDRANCE OF INDIAN HOCKEY.
Pic - :: The Indian Team Of The Moscow Olympics That Fetched Us the last Gold Medal
I shall cite another example. Against Pakistan when we lost
by 2-0 at Munich in the semis, and when Mukbain Singh was failing to find the
net at all, why was Michael Kindo not asked to take at least one or two
chances. In that Olympics Michael Kindo had scored THREE goals during the group
encounters. Again why was Aslam Sher Khan was not played even in any of the
games at Munich. If it was that he was so raw and young at the age of 17 to represent
India then why did you select him at all for that Olympics. Mukbain Singh was a
total disaster for india at that Olympics. Except for that HATTRICK against
Australia he failed to come up against any team which was better than India. If
India was scoring the goals it was because the forward line as well as the half line was scoring those goals for India .
Pakistan totally exposed the UNIMAGINATIVE
game the Indians were playing for all the time. It was because the manager of
the team Keshav Dut who was a Punjabi was more into adopting the Punjabi mode
of the play, putting his points over the points of K.D.Singh Babu who was the Chief
Coach and that ploy was so well read by the opponents that they would nullify
all the Indian attacks as did Pakistan in the semis, ad did Holland in the very
first match that it plated against India, as did Poland against us in the group
encounters, as did Kenya and New Zealand against us where we won those matches
by the scar and the skin of our teeth by 3-2 each but going to the arrears every
time. If we were winning those matches it was our forwards who were scoring against
the expectorations. However when it came to Pakistan they clipped our wingers
and made the entire team looked bugged out and ineffective to put us out of the
tourney.
We played patches of excellent Hockey at Munich but overall
we were bad all through.The deep defense was
weak and would cruble everytime. There was no much of a communication
between the halves and trhe fill back and the halves and the forwards. The line
of communication between the defenders and their imagination was very
poor.Pakistan totally exposed it in the semis. We speak a lot but we fool
ourself while speaking for Indian Hockey about the Munich Olympics. We put it across the Isreali murders and the Palestine’s
killing them as our reason of failure but there was many a flaw in that team.
Luck that we were to have won that Bronze or else it would have been a BIG-ZERO
there itself.
Pic - :: Pakistan Player about to smash a ball into the Indian net
Look into the
picture of the Pakistani player on the verge of hitting that ball into the
Indian goal.That is Tanvir Dar who is all about to hit that ball into the India
net.
Look at the Indian goal. The goalkeeper Manuel Fredricks is
standing at ONE corner of the left hand side of the post. Actually he should
have been standing at the centre. Look into the Indian defender who has rushed
to stop that ball from the hit being taken by Tanvir. He is Perumal
Krisnamurthy, Look into his eye and his head. His eye is somewhere else NOT
looking at the ball, whereas he should have been looking at the ball. When your
eye is away from the ball which the opponent defender is going to hit, how can
you place your stick right across the ball for the ball to be deflected and
prevented entering the goal. Look into the Indian defenders. One is placed
somewhere at the centre and the other one is placed right on the left hand post.
The right hand post is TOTALLY vacant. Just see one of thee Sardarji is totally at the back on the Left hand side of the GOAL BOARD where the ball hits the back of the goal post for the Umpire to count it as a goal, wherein he should have been guarding the Right Hand side of the goal .THIS IS A TOTAL UNIMAGINATIVE-DONKEY-LEVEL-OF-THINKING of a SARDARJI style of playing Hockey. Tanveer Dar just dribbled the onrushing
Indian defender as his eye was NOT at all on the ball, and finding the right
hand side of the goal open hit that one to put Pakistan 2-0 up and OUST India
by every mean from that tournament. If India earned as many as 18 penalty
corners and could not score ONE it was because the Pakistanis were HEAD-ALL
while thwarting the Indian attack when those situation arose. We have been
playing Hockey with NONSENCE guarding us for most of the time be it selecting
the team, be it deploying the tactics, be it strategizing ourself as against
the odds, or anything. We were completely LAID BACK in playing the same old
style of Hockey of the fifties and the early sixties or the sixties during the
era of the seventies when Hockey was fast changing and everything in Hockey was
changing. For most of the time we would often place the mistakes that we did it
on the referees and the press or the Indian media too would support these
BULLSHITS for everything but the fact is WE
WERE NOT SELECTING THE RIGHT METHOD TO BE ON THE RUN TO PLAY THE CHANGING HOCKEY AT ANY MOMENT.
Pakistan was changing and applying the changes fast. Their coaches were
moulding their players according to the need of the game. There might have been
players who were not upto that standard required and were finding a place in
the team, but when it came to play the TEAM-GAME they appeared to be a FITTER
than the FIT to play and jell with the team. That was the reason why Pakistan enjoyed
that kind of a SUCCESS from 1978 to 1984
when they except the Esanda Internationals in 1983 won all the important title
of Hockey in the World including the Olympics 1984 at Los Angeles .They were
quick to read the change, very quick to ADOPT those changes and they believed
in a TEAM game rather than playing the individual game.
6). We were not playing to fit into the schemes of the team
at all. Most of the time it openly, when we would see on the TV set made us to
feel that the synchronization between the team was not at all there. We would
over do the acts on the Hockey field. Pakistan had so many class of a dribblers
from 1978 to 1984 but they would NOT hang with the ball. One or TWO or at the
most THREE dribbles, here and there and in a splash the ball would go to the
one who would concrete the attack and build the pressure on the opponent to
create those opening. They would score from that. That was the reason they even
scored 12 goals against teams like New Zealand in the world Cup 1981 at Bombay.
Here we would HANG with the ball to much, would not pass the ball at the FIRST
time, would give the opponent to GHERAO us the attackers ie to allow the defenders
and the opponents to recoup and group themselves up in the striking circle to
allow them to defend and to thwart our attack and thus make a mess out of the
same. While doing so the Indian would be happy to earn those penalty corners
hoping to score of them but we when we would see al these happening on the
screen we would know that NOTHING would come out of those BULL-SHIT penalty
corners. Between 1978 to 1984 70% of the scoring by the Pakistani team was done
by their forwards , here 70% of the penalty corners were missed by our deep
defenders – THATWAS THE MAJOR DIFEFERNCE. We would TALK so HIGH about Merwyn
Fernandes when he would move with the ball at the opponent circle, built what
would come out of it. NOTHING. The result was that TOO MUCH OF HANGING would
allow the opponent and their defenders to encircle the Indians at the “D” and
the resultant penalty corners would go a begging – Pakistan and the others once
they entered the “D” they would go back banging the ball in the Indian goal.
That was the reason why India kept on losing to the much fancied opponents
conceding as many as seven goals and in one game against Australia in the World
Cup we conceded as many as TEN. In the finals of the Commonwealth games
Australia banged EIGHT without we replying. The only result ands the only
reason is WE STILL HAVE NOT ADOPTED OURSELF AND HAVE AN INDEPTH MIND OF
BELIEVING THAT WE ARE PLAYING THE RIGHT KIND OF A GAME.
Mostly the players
selected for the team of India and especially from the 1988 Olympics-
most of them are POOR runners. The speed is totally lacking. Over it we still
hang to much with the ball still relying on that OLD-TRADITIONAL game when it
comes to playing Hockey on the EVER-CHANGING-ASTRO TURF. That will NEVER help
us at at and at any moment .We need to change our game and our mindset if we
are to do anything better rather than hoping to play those SARDARJI style of
playing or the Punjabi style of playing those LAID-BACK-OLD-APPROACH of playing
this game.
The Adivasis and
The Uttar Pradsehi Muslims and Hockey
The adivasis or the tribes that plays Hockey at the
Sundergarh area of Orissa or Jharkahnd or Bihar are endowed with a very tight
and are very stubborn mindset with a very rich stamina that they possess right
from their growing stage and play play on the field to start with barefooted to
play Hockey. That makes their feet very strong and they play on the uneven
surface where the paddy are grown and after the harvest for most of the time
they play Hockey on those a kind of surface. They have to control the ball on
those kind of surface. That is how they learn to control, move very fast and
play always an attacking kind of a game.
The Muslims of Uttar Pradesh generally follow the tactics
that was applied by say K.D.Singh Babu or Dhyanchand and they tune themselves
to that a kind of a game. One of the reason why there were so many a Muslims
who were a treat to watch when they played that kind of a game because those
coaches moulde d them to the style of playing Hockey like Dhyanchand and
K.D.Singh babu would play, or afterwards Ali Zafar and Zafar Ali would play.
Ali Zafar played for Indian in the 1948, 1952 and the 1956 Olympics winning
THREE Golds and Zafar Ali had played for India in the 1932 and in the 1936
Olympics beside Dhyanchand winning TWO Golds. Both were from Gorakhpur and both
studied at the Aligarh Muslim University lest in 1947 after the partition Zafar
Ali mover to Pakistan.
Their Hockey deed are still impressed on the sand of Uttar
Pradesh. Most of the Boy’s coming out from Uttar Pradesh from the Sports Hostel
a Hostel which was initiated by K.D.Singh Babu and from where we got the likes
of Mohammed Shahid, Mohinder Pal Singh, S.A.H.Abdi, Mohammed Naim, Sujit Kumar , Mohammed
Azzizuddin, were all the product of the Sports Hostel. Lucknow. They played
that Dhaynchand-Babu-Ali Zafar kind and style of the game and they have been
moulded into that frame. It is one of the REASON that one would find and we
would see these players using their WIRST to the HIEGHT of the SKY where there
was and where there is BEAUTY every time waiting for ONE to see it.
These payers when they were mingled with the boy’s coming
either from Bombay, Punjab to cite and with one or two adivasis could not jell
with them as the Pakistani that we saw jelling with the guys that came from
either Multan or Lahore or Karachi.The reason is Pakistan had a SAME and a ONE
method of moulding their players that played for their team. Here the line of
thinking was and has been very different.
Inpite of Merwyn and Shahid playing together for so many a years from 1980 to
1988 we could NOT win any major tournament except the 1980 Olympics. Every time
we were ROUNDED and HOUNDED off by a tennis scores in the finals. Pains us to
say and for me to write, Pakistan defatted
us by defeating us by 7-1 in the finals of the Asian games, Australia beat us
by 6-1 in the Esanda Internationals in 1983, Australia again beat us by 6-1 in
the World Cup in 1986, we finished 12th out of the 12 teams playing
in the 1986 World Cup. Even inspite the fact we had such tremendous players
like Mohammed Shahid, Pargat Singh, Mohinder Pal Singh, Joaquim Carvalho,
Merwyn Fernandes, L.Tikken Singh, Thoiba Singh, Jagbeer Singh who came from the Meerut from
the Sports Hostel schemes and who really was a very good striker, we could not
impress at all to the World about our real strength of Hockey . Never did we do
anything to really find the real cause of the same.
The real cause was we were INDULGING in too much of hanging
around with the ball and were not passing the ball at the first occasion, we
call it FIRST-TIME-PASS at all to create that many a holes and the pressure on
out opponent and also that we were not attuning ourself to the need of the game. Pakistan in real were and would PLAY
for the team. Here we were not really in the proper shape of the mind to win anything.
We were rudderless and directionless and some of them were not good enough to
play or represent India at all .They were a total misfit to fit into the schemes
of either a Joaquim Carvalho, or a Merwyn Fernandes . That really dug us deep
and hit us hard. Joaquim Carvalho would have been a resounding success in the
name of Hockey but nobody remembers him now. In retrospect many talk about
Ishtiaque Ahmed of Pakistan.It is because the others especially Hasan Sardar
jeeled with him to make his name ultimately making his own for Pakistan and it’s
Hockey. There were many misfit in the Indian Hockey playing for India between
1977 to 1988 .
I was talking to a WORLD FAMOUS player from Holland and he
was Bouwman who was a WORLD CLASS HOCKEY player and a world class penalty specialist.
He plainly had told me- IF WE HAD MERWYN FERNANDES AND MOHAMMED
SHAHID WITH US FROM 1979 TO 1990 WE WOULD HAVE WON ALL THE TITLES OF THE WORLD
OF HOCKEY.
The same view was echoed by Ishlauddin saying that- AGAR SIRF SHAHID HAMARE PASS HOTA TOH
WALLAH KYA BAAT THAA KYA BAAT HOTA, which means if only we had Shahid
with us MY GOODNEES- what WOULD HAVE BEEN THE SCENARIO AT PAKISTAN AND OF PAKISTAN
HOCKEY. He later added we do
not need a Merwyn for Hasan Sardar. We
only needed ONE Mohammed Shahid and that was ENOUGH for us. Here at India WE
WENT ON TO SAY THAT- WE/ I DO NOT CONSIDER THAT ONE AS A HOCKEY PLAYER AT ALL
WHO IS A FATHER OF THREE CHILDRENS when Mohammed Shahid was displaced
of the post of the CAPTAINSHIP of the Indian Hockey team which was rightfully
his for the Olympics 1988 the Seou Olympics .
I would continue this article perhaps ending it tomorrow
with certain rules that forcible came into the world Of Hockey and the changes
where India totally failed to adopt and change for itself to be completely
rubbed off from the memory and the field of Hockey. NOBODY PRAISES INDIAN HOCKEY ANYMORE. The reason is WE OURSELF HAVE KILLED OUR HOCKEY.
Well , that is it and That sums it all.
Regards and Thanks
Pics
Shyamal Bhattacharjee
Mr Shyamal Bhattacharjee, the author was born at West Chirimiri Colliery at District Surguja, Chattisgarh on July 6th 1959 He received his early education at Carmel Convent School Bishrampur and later at Christ Church Boys' Higher Secondary School at Jabalpur. He later joined Hislop College at Nagpur and completed his graduation in Science and he also added a degree in B A thereafter. He joined the HITAVADA, a leading dailies of Central India at Nagpur as a Sub-Editor ( Sports ) but gave up to complete his MBA in 1984 He thereafter added a Diploma In Export Management. He has authored THREE books namely Notable Quotes and Noble Thought published by Pustak Mahal in 2001 Indian Cricket : Faces That Changed It published by Manas Publications in 2009 and Essential Of Office Management published by NBCA, Kolkatta in 2012. He has a experience of about 35 years in Marketing .
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