“He was my choice of player for the centre-forward position. He lived upto my expectation. His role was instrumental in our Bangkok success” said M.K. Kaushik, coach of the 1998 Asian Games gold winning team, immediately after learning Prabhakaran’s death.

Tamil Nadu’s Laksmanan Prabhakaran, 32, died of heart attack on Friday in Chennai. The celebrated striker donned Indian colours for about 100 times including the 1998 Commonwealth Games.

“Prabhakaran was first among the 1998 Asiad medallist who contributed each Rs.10,000 towards improving the lot of poverty-stricken Gopal Bengra”, said Kaushik. He was only a clerk in a bak that time, still he wanted to help a former player”.

All of the 1998 Asiad medallist organized a “Player-Protect-Player-Programme (PPPP) in 1999 by which the former WOrd Cup player Gopal Bengra was given a sum of about 2.5 lakh.

In his ‘Golden Boot’, the book that chronicles the Bangkok Asiad success, Kaushik recollects Prabhakaran of being good at all three frontline positions. He vividly also recollects the beautiful goal he scored against South Africa, the match winner, at the KL Commonwealth Games. “He gently flicked the ball above the goalkeeper’s body as he was even lying down. This gave us three full points in an otherwise low scoring match”.

“He is a hero in Tamil Nadu, He scored a lot of goals in the domestic matches especially in the National Championships. He is much acclaimed for his dribbling and scoring prowess. Naturally, these all has led to him developing confidence in his abilities. Self-confidence is a wonderful drug. It motivated him to do always better and better”

The great things about him is, he is totally a team man” Kaushik concluded.