S2H Team

Vasudevan Baskaran, India’s captain at the 1980 Moscow Olympic team, paid tributes to former teammate Ravinderpal Singh who succumbed to Covid-19 in Lucknow on Saturday.

Ravinderpal was centre-half of that gold medal-winning team and Baskaran went down memory lane to underline the youngster’s sparkling performance under his captaincy.

“He was Ajit Pal Singh’s successor at centre-half and was a complete player in that position especially on artificial surfaces,” Baskaran, who manned the left-half position, recalled. “Ravinderpal was affectionate and was liked by the entire team.”

A product of Sports Hostel, Lucknow, Baskaran,70, appreciated the young player in his team’s mastery of the basics and executor of sublime skills that a legion of incumbents from that centre have brought to the game.

“Ravinderpal combined modern skills with the traditional. He was good at the aerial pass and joined the attack frequently bringing a touch of aggression to his crucial role. He excelled at positional play, recovery and never tired – he was quite simply the modern hockey centre-half,” Baskaran added.

Born in 1958, Ravinder’s contemporaries were the great Mohammed Shahid and Syed Ali – also products of Sports Hostel and fitted well into the scheme of things.

“His forays into the attack produced many goals – several scored by Ravinderpal himself and I recall a few beautiful ones against Pakistan.

“You could bracket him with Sardara Singh (India’s celebrated centre-half and captain who retired in 2018),” Baskaran opined. “But, to me, Ravinderpal was more skillful perhaps because hockey was different in those days and it called for the skills Ravinderpal had in great measure.”

“The fact that he played in two Olympics (1980 Moscow and 1984 Los Angeles) and a World Cup (Mumbai 1982) indicates his worth in the Indian team,” Baskaran said.

“An unassuming person, he was shy of the cell phone and rarely responded to calls but when we met up with other former teammates, he was good fun.

“He was given to charity for the cause of the game and often donated hockey sticks to needy players.

“His passing away is a great loss to hockey in general and especially to the game in Uttar Pradesh from where he hailed,” Baskaran lamented.