Ex-hockey star struggling against odds!

While watching his maternal uncle and hockey wizard Kunwar Digvijay Singh 'Babu' in action, Mahendra Singh always wanted to play for the country in same position. But he wasn't aware that he would be struggling even for a small sum of Rs 2000 in future.

The veterans of three nationals in 70's, former hockey star of Uttar Pradesh Mahendra Singh now days has become a 'shuttlecock' to get his Rs 2000 p.m. pension from the Mayawati-led State Government, which made a lot of promises for the former and present sportspersons of the State after assuming the power.

Before playing his first nationals at Hyderabad in 1963, the former right-in Singh let his stick do the talking against Afghanistan (1958), Holland (1959) and Germany (1962) in hockey series, and thereafter he had impressive run in all three nationals Hyderabad (1963), Chennai (1964) and Pune (1965).

"I had no idea that after putting everything of mine for the game, I would be struggling for my survival too," says Mahendra Singh, who now has developed some problem in his ears.

"I used to play with my uncle (KD Singh) and I was determined to become a great hockey player like him," says Singh, who is now a farmer. After being rated as 'state player' the State Government through its Uttar Pradesh Sports Directorate sanctioned him a sum of Rs 2000 as monthly pension in November last year, and the orders regarding the regular payment was sent to Sitapur's sports officer.

But, since then Singh is struggling for the payment of his first pension. "On January 30 too, I was told by the clerk that come next time as he was busy and this was for the 10th time when he told me like this," says Singh. "No body in the Sitapur sports office is ready to hear my problem. I know that the clerk wants some share in my pension, but I am ready to do it," adds Singh.

Naipaul on Cricket

Keeping with my newly found passion for reading, I discovered something about West Indian Cricket. It bears a stamp of foresight from the author, VS Naipaul. That one paragraph in the second chapter of the book titled, "The Middle Passage", Naipaul mentions about how critical cricket proved to be for Trinidad - an island that was unique in its demeanor and attitude towards life. And then comes a long-term view of West Indian cricket, which has puzzled all of us through the last one decade -

Cricket has always been more than a game in Trinidad. In a society which demanded no skills and offered no rewards to merit, cricket was the only activity which permitted a man to grow to his full stature and to be measured against international standards. Alone on a field, beyond obscuring intrigue, the cricketer's true worth could be seen by all. His race, education, wealth did not matter. We had no scientists, engineers, explorers, soldiers or poets. The cricketer was our only hero-figure. And that is why cricket is played in the West Indies with such panache; that is why for a long time to come, the West Indians will not be able to play as a team. The individual performances was what mattered. That was what we went to applaud; and unless the cricketer had heroic qualities, we did not want to see him, however valuable he might be. And that was why, those stories of failure, that of the ruined cricketer was the most terrible. In Trinidad lore, he was a recurring figure; he appears in the Trinidad play, Moon on a Rainbow Shawl by Errol John.

Its unfortunate that West Indies as a cricket team has deteriorated drastically in since 2000. That was the time when Naipaul's critical cynicism comes back and reminds us how important the game is to the islands who are not necessarily in the pink of economic health or even a stable political system. Cricket means so much to the West Indies - in terms of geographical unification and beyond just that.

There was a breath of fresh air when Trinidad qualified for the 2006 World Cup, so much so that the West Indies cricket team playing against India in a Test series had its eyes firmly on what Leo Beenhakker's men were about to achieve. Trinidad found a new sport to express itself, fifteen new role-models. They might have not set the world alight in terms of scoring goals, but the football team typified the spirit the nation displays - the passionate splinter that refuses to die down.

Pillay Unplugged

Former Hockey ace Dhanraj Pillay doesn't seem ready to accept that Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) would allow legendary Aussie forward Richard Charlesworth enough space to do his best for the uplift of the team's performance at the international level.

The ace forward Pillay, while praising the qualities of Charlesworth as technical advisor to Indian hockey team, feels that politics 'involved' in the IHF won't give Charlesworth a free hand to do his best.

"He is a legend, who has contributed immensely to world hockey, and don't think that IHF is ready to accept such a man, who can become a problem for them in future with his good working," Pillay said just before playing in an exhibition match in memory of ex-Olympian Vivek Singh in Varanasi early this week.

"In IHF no body is allowed to work freely and that's why senior players were always neglected. And if the IHF continues to behave like this with Ric too, there association will come to an end immediately." He also expressed his anger on IHF for ignoring him for the just concluded Premier Hockey League. "Denying me a chance to play hockey in the PHL was a crime committed by the IHF, and this proved that how IHF is working on whims and fancies of some opportunist people."

Baptism by Fire

A baptism of fire you’d say. But I thought it was a trifle harsh on poor Manoj Tiwary. Barely 48 hours Down Under he is asked to take on one Brett Lee. Have a heart, one would take that many hours just to get accustomed to a new room, forget a new country and that too with hostile bowling conditions.

He was selected on merit for a tour of Bangladesh and had he succeeded — a probability of that would be close to one — things could have been different. Who knows? But as luck would have it, he had to come back following an injury. This time going to Australia as a standbye one would argue that he’s at least got a chance. But if the match against Australia, is the only one he’s going to get, it would be injustice. More so, when the selection in the first match is justified by the ‘instinct’ of M.S. Dhoni.

Lack of Interest

IT SEEMS that the younger generation of Lucknow lacks love for the national game hockey. This was very much evident in the 19^th Balrampur Chini All-India KD Singh ‘Babu’ Sub-Junior Hockey Tournament, which Uttar Pradesh won for the seventh successive time on Saturday.

Out of 16-member team of the State, no one was from Lucknow, which still holds the pride for producing great hockey players in the past, including Major Dhyan Chand and Kunwar Digvijay Singh 'Babu'.

"Now, every young player try his luck in cricket and that's the reason why hockey is being neglected in the heartland of the game also," said ex-hockey coach of Sports College Pandit Ram Autar Mishra.

"I find hockey much costly than the cricket. If you have a bat and ball you can play cricket throughout the day, but in hockey everyone requires a hockey stick to play," he said, adding, "Moreover, the parents do encourage their wards only for the games like cricket, tennis, badminton etc."

"Undoubtedly, the interest for the game is lacking very much among the younger generation. But we all have to come forward to regenerate the interest of them in the game."

Golden era!

Team India speedster Rudra Pratap Singh feels that the selection of as many as four cricketers from the State in Team India should be considered as a golden era of cricket in Uttar Pradesh.

"It's a great moment for all of us that a large chunk of team members of the national side belong to Uttar Pradesh, which has no dearth of talent," said Rudra during his short stay in the State Capital after returning from Australia.

"Suresh Raina, Piyush Chawla and Praveen Kumar are very talented and I am sure that these guys would surely make a mark, whenever they get a chance for this," said Rudra, adding, "Some more youngsters like Tanmay Srivastava etc. are coming up gradually at the senior level, and in future too we can see more faces of Uttar Pradesh in the Team India."

Dronacharyas no more

Dipika Pallikal can well throw her squash racquet into the bin and pursue a career in films and modelling. The Sweet 16 lass from Chennai has what it takes to be a ‘role model’, but the British Open junior champion has decided to stick to squash - her first love - and dedicate her next few years to the sport - if the moribund and stinking sports system in the country allows here to do it.

After her return from the UK recently, where she won the prestigious Under-17 title --- equivalent to the world championship crown --- she finds herself being trashed by the Squash Racquet Federation of India (SRFI) and its Dronacharya Awardee coach Cyrus Poncha, who proclaims he taught her how to hold the racquet!

The petite girl has been ejected from the team for the Asian Championships is Kuwait from Feb 13 to 21, 2008 and with the SRFI not giving her the proper feedback, she flew off to Cairo to train with the Egyptian national coach.

All those who follow squash would know that the SRFI only wants players from Tamil Nadu - more specifically the Indian Cement Limited Academy wards - to prosper. Rest all can go for a walk.

What happens to players like Pallikal in that case? The most talented squash player to come out of the system would probably be consumed by the system. Some other day, another Dronacharya Awardee will commit the cardinal mistake, and the cycle will go on….

Have all these Dronacharyas of sport forgotten the tenets the great Drona preached and stood for hundreds of years back?

Tears in heaven

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
(Rudyard Kipling, If)

Over this on Wednesday, pause a while all who care for soccer, nay sport. For on that day, a few good men were cut down in the prime of their lives and a team that could have been never was.

If only the British European Airways Flight 609 not tried to take off for a third time, maybe Manchester United would have been European conquerors 10 years before George Best, Dennis Law and Bobby Charlton and their mates were crowned champions. If only Duncan Edwards and six of his teammates not died, Matt Busby would have taken a team harnessed primarily from local talent to the pinnacle of Europe that much earlier.

Busby’s rising from the dead and rebuilding the team is a lesson in never giving up we could all draw strength from. It is a lesson which lies at the heart of one of football’s greatest-ever institutions. It is something Manchester United typified again at White Hart Lane on Saturday. Watching Carlos Tevez steal a point when all looked lost, Sir Bobby would have gone home happy that 50 years on, the spirit still lives. One that was sowed in one of modern sport’s greatest tragedies.

The Harbies

Keeping up with my daily newspaper surfing activity, I stumbled upon a tongue-in-cheek piece by Aussie scribe Robert Craddock in The Daily Telegraph. It is an absolute must-read, sarca-take on the fallout of the Harbhajan racism row.

And here it goes:

IT'S time for Cricket Australia to scrap its Allan Border Medal night and introduce a concept that would grab the cricket world . . . The Harbies.

The writer comes up with fitting award categories like - The Best Foreign Language Actor, which of course goes to Harbhajan Singh himself, and then the Spirit of Cricket, which he reckons must be given to the Aussie team for them signing the "Spirit of Cricket" pact with Cricket Australia.

THE laughably highbrow Spirit of Cricket pact signed by Australia's leading players, particularly the clause in which they promise to respect other cultures.

Just read it for more of these nominations and awardees, for now I ask - Are the Oscars happening this year ?

Picture Courtsey: The Daily Telegraph

Chill out and play, don’t crib Prakash

Life’s a ‘cold calamity’ but Indian Davis Cupper Prakash Amritraj doesn’t seem --- or want --- to realise it. Just the other day he decided to pull out of the China Futures because it was just too cold.

Now, people all over the world have braved chill and come out firing on all cylinders, in varied disciplines including tennis. Remember, India’s tennis ace Leander Paes playing in tracksuits in freezing China and still winning the Davis Cup rubber for the country.

More cold statistics to chill your senses:

1. On January 1 last year, the US Tennis Association (USTA) Northern organised the Coldest Day of Tennis and tried to set a world record for the coldest tennis match ever played (currently this record does not exist). The match started at 8 a.m. with a temperature reading of minus 16 degrees Celsius and ended at 11 a.m. at minus 4. The big challenge was keeping the tennis balls warm enough so that they would bounce. The balls were kept warm in a car that had its engine running, and exchanged every five minutes.

2. British adventurer Lewis Gordon Pugh swam one kilometre in July 2007 near the North Pole to highlight the effects of global warming and break his own record for the world's coldest swim. Sporting just a swimming cap, trunks and goggles, Pugh swam one km in minus 1.8 degrees. "Most people have no idea that you can find patches of open sea at the North Pole in summer," said Pugh, who set the record for the coldest human swim off Antarctica at zero degree.

Did all these people crib about the fact that the courts or the waters were too cold for comfort?

Maybe, Prakash should think twice before playing in the Davis Cup rubber against Uzbekistan in Delhi too. The National Capital is still in the grip of a cold wave!!

Keep the faith

After today’s thrashing — mismatch, massacre, mauling; I can hear the derogatives pouring in as the day goes by — it may seem a little out of place to say these three words: keep the faith. And just in case you thought I didn’t mean what I just said, I am saying it again. Keep the faith in Dhoni’s boys. Thank god for anonymity.

Given that our patience when it comes to sport our patience or thoughts of long-term investment is as firm as a limp biscuit, it wouldn’t be unusual to lambast this team months after we put them on top of the world for we are like this only.

But consider this, all ye baying for young blood. This team did something in one attempt which the Big Daddies of our cricket could not after at least three tries. Most of these boys know what it takes to beat Australia in T20 because they have done it already. And when it took two Test matches for our batting gladiators to get the hang of Australia, their pitches, sledging, a furiously fast and now a fantastic pace ace called Brett Lee, shouldn’t these boys be given a little more time than a game which, if it did go the distance, wouldn’t last more than three hours.

And before we hit the roof about Dhoni’s reported obstinacy in keeping Sourav Ganguly out, just think for a moment whether there would be any sportsman who would deliberately weaken a team he is leading. Also, didn’t Ganguly keep VVS Laxman and Anil Kumble out of ODIs for pretty much the same reasons as he is being kept out now? The old guard has had its time in the sun and deserved every second of it. But, ladies and gentleman, it’s time to move on even if it mans taking a few in the ribs or on the chin.

An ump to a vamp !

"From an umpire to vampire", that's how a fan tiptoeing across the Madhavrao Scindia Stadium during a Duleep Trophy match recently described Steve Bucknor.

Even as the Sydney fiasco has been buried to death, the man who was at the epicentre of all the drama still continues to be in the news; for all the wrong reasons off-course.

And taking a toll worldwide are the men who are into the same profession it seems !

Providing fillip to such thoughts is the West Zone versus Central Zone Duleep Trophy match.

Even as both teams boasted of many talented players in their ranks, there were a few good knocks too and a fiver-wicket haul, the handful of spectators present inside the stadium though seemed more busy pouring scorn on the two umpires officiating the match. More than the Kaifs, Munafs and Kartiks, it was the word Bucknor that reverberated across the stadium.

A rare case of umpires stealing the limelight from players. Thank you Mr. Bucknor.

Wrong' un

THE SELECTION of Charanjit Singh, the Punjab off spinner, to the Duleep Trophy, was indeed a wrong'un by the selectors. The spinner had just four wickets to his credit in the Ranji Trophy; and yet he was awarded a place in the North Zone squad. The reasoning for the selection, too, was equally baffling. "We don't have off spinners coming through, so we pushed him as he seemed to be the best on view," explained Bhupinder Singh (Sr), the national selector. Now, can someone ask the wise man if an off spinner is mandatory in the squad? If no, then why pick up someone who just didn't deserve to be there?