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A new chapter in hockey

Photo: Nagara Gopal

Building the team A. K. Bansal shares a few words of wisdom with the players

For those attending the ongoing Junior Asia Cup hockey championship preparatory camp being held at Gachibowli under the watchful eyes of A. K. Bansal of Sports Authority of India, the presence of Ashok Kumar, son of the legendary Dhyan Chand is an inspirational factor ahead of the qualifying event for the next World Cup.

This 58-year-old forward, who scored the match-winning goal in the historic 1975 World Cup victory over Pakistan (incidentally, the only World Cup India has won so far) put things in perspective in simple Hindi during his pep-talk as part of his job to monitor the selection trials along with the illustrious Ajitpal Singh, Zafar Iqbal, Aslam Sher Khan (chairman of ad hoc selection panel) and Dhanraj Pillay.

“You (players) will be remembered for what you achieve at the highest level and not how you play in the camp. Anyone can be a quality player if he shares the responsibility of the team – both in defeat and victory. You cannot bask in glory by virtue of scoring a goal or two. You have to even share the burden of defeat,” are the words of wisdom from the former two-time Olympian Ashok Kumar.

He also stressed that the beauty of hockey lies in the way the passes were essayed to the player specified.

“If your teammate is running with the ball, you have to follow him and not just wait in the designated position on the field. You have to show opportunism to be a better player,” he explains.

All this while, his World Cup winning captain Ajitpal Singh and others watched from the sidelines.

Bansal is delighted at the gesture of Ashok Kumar which was essentially aimed at instilling self-belief in the players.

“They have the potential to be future stars. All that is needed is proper guidance and consistency from their side at the highest level,” says the chief coach.Fortunately, with N. Madhukaran, SAI coach in Hyderabad, ensuring that everything the players and coaches need for smooth conduct of the camp is in place, Bansal has little to bother about other than his job.

Complementing his efforts are thesupport staff – assistant coach Rajesh Chauhan, trainer Dr. Pradeep Dutta, physio Srikanth.

With the Junior Asia Cup (July 11 to 18) here being the qualifier for the next Junior World Cup, the determination is to set the clock right. “We are aware of the huge responsibility. But we are confident that the Asia Cup could well be the beginning of a new chapter in terms of building the team for the future. Our ultimate goal is to see India in 2012 Olympics under the ‘Vision2012’ long-term programme,” insists Aslam Sher Khan.

Significantly, stalwarts like Ashok, Zafar Iqbal believe that there is no dearth of talent among juniors.

“It is only seniors we are worried. May be, this was because of the way the sport was run and the selection process adopted then,” says one of them.

With the Hyderabad Hockey Association president Dinesh Reddy, IPS, and his team of officials including V. Ramachander Rao, vice-president of HHA, P. Kantaiah, HHA secretary, deciding to leave no stone unturned to make the event a huge success in the organisational front, if not from spectators’ perspective, the onus is on the hosts to defend the title.

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