The Hindu : Sport : National championship begins today

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Oct 20, 2006
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Sport

National championship begins today

S. Thyagarajan

Chennai: The National hockey championship for the Rangaswamy Cup has acquired a semblance of continuity. Left in the limbo in the 1990s owing to various factors, the event was back on the board last year in Hyderabad.

The administrative constraints, often explained as lack of sponsorship, indifference of State units to taking the burden, or intervening coaching camps, were hard to sell. Eventually the IHF had to take note of the competition's value.

The relevance of a National can hardly be ignored. It provides the stage to assess the available talent pool. Imagine the fare that will be on display when 51 squads play in less than a fortnight. The insights and inputs will be tremendous for the selectors.

First time

For the first time, a five-year contract with the leading newspaper group Dainik Bhaskar and Tracer Shoes has been signed. The fraternity owes a debt of gratitude to them for their magnificent gesture.

As the 62nd edition enters the fact file on Friday, it is not easy to remain unaffected by the nostalgia of a competition that was launched in 1928 at Calcutta. The best in the land have figured in it; be it Dhyanchand, K.D. Singh, Balbir Singh (sr), Prithipal Singh, Harbinder Singh, Ajitpal Singh, to name a few.

Phase one goes into stream on Friday in New Delhi for the Associate members — the institutional outfits — and at four centres in Punjab in Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar and Bhaini Saheb. The 37 constituent units are divided into the eight groups with the winner of each qualifying for second phase. They will join the four qualifiers from the inter-institutional event. The process is expected to be completed by Oct. 26.

The top 12 teams will then figure in a league-cum-knock-out super league at Jalandhar from Oct. 28 to Nov. 3.

The IHF has released five players from the current Asian Games camp. They are Adrian D'Souza, Vikram Pillay and Arjun Halappa for Indian Airlines, Sardara Singh for Indian Oil and Dhananjaya Mahadik for Services.

This premier competition returns to the home of our hockey, Punjab and Jaladhar after a gap of 25 years. The host team Punjab won the Cup in 1981 defeating Railways. And it has not triumphed after 1983 at Meerut.

The dominance of institutional outfits now is clear; this can be substantiated by last year's final line-up — Punjab and Sind Bank against Indian Oil. The former begins as the defending champion.

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