ACM 2009: TIT BITS HERE AND THERE – V

ASIA CUP TIT BITS HERE AND THERE — LAST PART

Sponsors always like winning. A day after Malaysia defeated Japan and entered the Semifinals of the Asia Cup, Air Asia inserted full page advertisement in The Star newspaper.

Australian Tim is an ardent hockey fan. You saw him with body fitting balloon at Mochengladbach, entertaining the home teams. He did not bring the yellow balloon to Kuantan, but was as usual spot on all matches. Very shrewd follower of the game, he said after drew China 2-2. “Its death wish from India”.

Whenever and wherever India take part in any tournament, a group of UK Indians fly global to witness the team. This time was very low on this score. There was of course omnipresent Baldev Kalsi was here. He has been watching hockey for over three decades. “We all booked ticket to Dubai, hoping Asia Cup there. After it was shifted to Malaysia, most of us could not cancel or re-route the ticket. Some of my friends had no other option than to fly Dubai so as not to allow tickets lapse”. Changing venues in the last minute create problem of its own. Do the AHF listen?

A casual talk with a group of security men gave me an interesting insight. One of the uniformed men told me that what we see (security people) are misleading. “There are double the number of plain cloth security men here”. I asked why so many security here, as normally Malaysia is considered a safe place for sports. “We were told World Cup is coming here. Even a small incident is therefore undesirable for the authorities here, because that might sabotage our chances of getting the World Cup”.

Syed Adel was till recently Secretary of Bangladesh Hockey Association, he was in Kuantan. He says a new set of officials selected themselves in the recent election, which was boycotted by top two clubs in Bangladesh. “Our Olympic Association will form an Adhoc Committee soon, and then election notice will be sent”. For me for a while it seemed I am talking to an Indian official. ‘Ad-hoc’ Committee is a permanent malaise in Asia it seems.

The senior most journalist in the press box is Zakhir Hussai Syed. He is a popular face on the PTV, and also a well known radio commentator. He saw all the first the Golds his home team winning. This time he missed it though. He was so graceful that he deserved everybody’s respect. Often, he will come with you with a pocket of biscuits or a slice of fruit, distributing to whole media. It was so nice of him.

A seasoned Bangladesh official says hockey’s leading lights like India should help Bangladesh to improve its national team. I asked how. He says, “Let them give entry to our teams in their tournaments, host us for a month or two. Our boys will get competitions. We don’t get right opportunities to compete”. I think he has a point.

We met a group of Bangladesh boys on the Kuantan beach a day before India-Bangla match. They all had only one tournament experience before coming here. That was AHF Cup held in September 2008. Their team’s goalkeeper said”, One player in your team has played 400, 500 matches. We don’t have that type of experience with us”.

I flew with the team in the same Malaysian Airlines flight. Hari Prasad had a good nap. Dilip was busy taking pictures, his hobby nowadays. He has a very good Cannon SLR camera with two lens. Dhanraj caught a Malaysian lie. That fellow said he played in the 1975 World Cup though looked very young. Dhanraj asked his year of birth only to be told, 1962. “He played World Cup at the age of 13, you know”, Dhanraj grinned at you.

Vinaya was busy with laptop, and explained how China will introduce virtual monitor and keyboard early next year. This guy is veritable Hi-Flier.

When we stood in the queue for Immigration clearance a the Indira Gandhi international airport in Delhi, goalie Baljit Singh remarked,”When we returned last time, we were taken from some other route not needing to wait for this routine”.

One of the daughters of late Balkrishan Singh, double Olympic gold medalist and former National team coach, were among the co-travellers. They had a good photo session with the players. She lives in New Zealand and just missed to see India in action during the last tour. She is going to Chandigarh to meet her another sister.

The returning team was in for a surprise when Aslam Khan, Convenor of the IOA Adhoc Committee on hockey, Anupam Ghualti, in-charge of communication, and a top Sports Authority of India official, Srinivas were there to receive them. “Sometimes team lose. We should treat them equally irrespective of team results”, said Md. Aslam. Well said, and nice of you.

For me one personal note. On the last day, I lost my mobile. Next day the bus I was taking from Kuantan to Kuala Lumpur broke down and the repairs took two hours. As a result, I barely managed to reach the KLIA airport. Some players were really anxious of me, and my delay, am thankful to their concern.

Note: I got lot of personal mail congratulating for this light stuff. Will be nice if you all can post your notes directly in the website, for that you have to either use feedback form or login after registering.

CONCLUDED