The Hindu : Sport / Hockey : Sub-jr. women's National shifted to Bangalore

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Sunday, May 14, 2006

Sport

Sport - Hockey

Sub-jr. women's National shifted to Bangalore

Special Correspondent

BANGALORE: The 18th National sub-junior women's hockey championship scheduled to be held at Hassan next week, has been shifted to Bangalore. The tournament, will now be held from May 17 to 22 at the KSHA Stadium here.

According to Mrs. Radha Murthy, President of the State Women's Hockey Association, the change has been made due to "circumstances beyond the control of the association as Hassan plays host to a political convention during the same period".

Lack of preparation

But the real reason seems to be the lack of preparation on the part of the local organisers at Hassan, especially the District Secretary, who has failed to rope in the sponsors or making other arrangements necessary to host a National event. The KSWHA, which was counting on the Hassan unit, realised its folly and has decided to move the venue at the 11th hour.

Despite the shift in the venue, the KSWHA is confident of hosting the event in Bangalore in a befitting manner. "Sure, we don't have a title sponsor now, but we plan to chip in and run the show well," said Mrs. Murthy. The change in venue also came as a blessing in disguise, as more teams, after learning that the tournament, has been moved to Bangalore, have sent in their entries. The Karnataka team, which is led by Nisha, has been training under coach Venkatesh for quite some time and hopes to better its last year's showing, when it finished in the last eight round. In the last championship held at Kapurthala, Jharkhand emerged as the champion.

Besides those two teams, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Punjab, AP and Manipur are expected to field strong teams for the championship.

The tournament will be played on a league-cum-knock out basis. The top team from each of the six groups will qualify for the quarterfinal knock-out while champion Jharkhand and Haryana have been seeded into the quarterfinals.

The groupings:

Pool `A': PEPSU, Tamil Nadu and Chattisgarh. Group `B': Orissa AP and Mizoram. Group `C': Chandigarh, Bhopal and Kerala. Group `D': Manipur, Karnataka and Maharashtra. Pool `E': Delhi, Gujarat and West Bengal. Pool `F': UP, Bihar and Mumbai.

Karnataka team: Goal-keepers: Likitha Muthanna and Kaveri Muthanna. Full-backs: Saraswathi, Lavanya and C.S. Shruthi. Half-backs: Bollama, Leelavathi, Ashitha and Manjula. Forwards: K.S. Sukhi, H.K. Nisha (captain), Saba Froze, Saira Banu, Chandini and Yogeshwari.

Reserves: Ponnamma, Smitha, Shruthi and Tirupathi. Officials: B.S. Venkatesh (coach) and Ms. Savithri (Manager).

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