JMWC: International returns to Lucknow exactly after 20 summers

It was exactly 20 summers ago, the city of Nawabs, as Lucknow is known, last hosted an international hockey tournament. Fittingly, defender Rajnish Mishra, son of the soils, led his team to Gold in the smallest field of the 10-year old, India’s own invitational tournament.

Of course the event that Rajnish won had two unique features: it was the dead-end for the tournament, secondly first and last international event that ESPN event-managed for the then IHF, though the original contract thereto was for ten years!

The Junior World Cup for Men comes to the hockey provenance, Lucknow, of prominence which produced no less than the player of calibre of Dhyan Chand.

There cannot be a sweeter news for hockey connoisseurs than this.

Uttar Pradesh State, whose capital is Lucknow, is byword for hockey till not long ago.

Besides global beckon Dhyan Chand, the provenance produced such stalwart hockey players as Kunwar Digvijay Singh (50s), Jhamanlal Sharma (60s), Mohammad Shahid, Zafar Iqbal, Romeo James (80s), Sujit Kumar, Ravinder Pal Singh,RP Singh Vivek Singh Mohinder Pal Singh, Vineet Kumar (90s), Mohd. Shakeel Khan, Sanjay Bist, Mohd Arif Khan, Praveen Kumar came later.

Devesh Chauhan and his contemporaries marked the 2000s.

Danish Mujtaba is the lone torch bearer now of once dominating power house.

Lucknow based Sports Hostel produced unending number of stars for about three decades before it was consumed by the over-age rage in the last decade.

Due to various factors, Uttar Pradesh hockey nowadays lives on the past.

Despite producing equal number of men and women hockey players, UP finds it difficult to find its traditional mooring nowadays, giving way to Jharkhand, Orissa, Karnataka, Haryana and Punjab to dominate national scene.

However, its fact that the decline of Indian hockey in the 90s and early 2000s coincided with the diminishing returns from UP hockey.

The Indira Gandhi Cup which it last hosted in 1996 for instant was led by Rajnish Mishra, coached by Aligarh product Zafar Iqbal, had six UP players in the team.

Present Indian team has just one token UPite in Danish. This is one instant how the State slipped in producing players.

The State started believed in Jugaad kind rather than belief on hard work.

UP is one of the rare States in India which boasts about ten synthetic turf, from Bareilly, Rampur to Gorakhpur, Varanasi and Jhansi.

The hosting of Junior World Cup in six months is a good news for the city, the State and the provenance.

Hosting of Hockey India League brought Ranchi and Bhubneswar to the limelight, so also major international events there.

Raipur provided another vista how taking international tournaments outside Delhi, serves meaningful purpose, help hockey grow in traditional centres.

Like Madhya Pradesh, it is hoped the Uttar Pradesh will take this opportunity not only to host it on professional lines, but also develop an extensive grassroot project and spread hockey uniformly.

Having been to Lucknow to cover Indira Gandhi Cup (men and women) regularly, I hope the city will turn out to be an excellent host.

But times were different then, the host having many powers which nowadays usurped by the global body.

Now people fly from Europe where the FIH is headquartered, to attend to every ceremonial step, taking away in the process the enthusiasm of the host.

Be it as it may.

Coming of big ticket event to UP is a welcome step.