The Hindu : Sport : A tale of woe

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Sep 12, 2004

Sport

Sport - Sports : General

A tale of woe

HYDERABAD, SEPT.11. For the host, it has been a disappointing show in the ninth Asian handball championship for junior men so far at the Kotla Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy Indoor Stadium — both on the court and off it.

First, the Indian team, which won against the lowest-rated Bangladeshis on the first day before losing to Chinese Taipei and Japan, will have to pull off something extraordinary in the next two encounters against Oman and the defending champion, Kuwait, to qualify for the knock-out phase. This seems most unlikely if the current form and the utter lack of speed are any indication. With the exception of Jain Prasad and Ramesh Chand and to some extent Loitongbam Henary, there was nothing to cheer about.

And off the court, it was a depressing story with only a total of 3350 spectators turning up for the first three days featuring 15 matches in a stadium which has a seating capacity of 5000. Interestingly, the lowest crowd was recorded for the Kuwaiti-Bangladesh encounter for which only a 100 people turned up while the China-India match had the biggest turnout of 700. The reason being cited is that there are not too many handball enthusiasts in the city. Part of the blame has also been attributed to the AP State Handball Association for almost being dormant over the years, hosting only the odd local tournament. — V.V. Subrahmanyam

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