Bangalore: It was with great enthusiasm and expectations our Air India team participated in the inagugural Ragavendra Cup for U&I Trophy at Bangalore. We had amongst us a host of ex-internationals springled with a few up and coming stars. Yet we did not click when it mattered and hence we had to bow out of the prestigeous Championship after losing a ‘must win’ game against Punjab Police at a fighting score of 2-3. We needed an outright win over them to reach the semif-final but it was not to be.
I don’t offer any excuse for our failure but it’s a fact that we were hampered by the absense of a few key players like forward Davinder Kumar, Conroy, Vijay Alphonso. Mandeep singh joined us late in the day. Edward Aranha, our wily winger, who was going great guns till then, had to play at his half pace in the crucial match due to a hamstring strain.
In spite of these shortcomings we have ourselves to blame for not qualifying as we carried the sin of drawing against Indian Army XI when we could have defeated them easily. We missed at least 3 to 4 gilt edged chances against them. Then again, according to my judegement, we lost a game to IHF Jrs which we should have drawn. In this match, we deflected the ball out in a well thought out penalty corner variation, from a handshaking distance a minute from end. Against Punjab Police some silly defensive errors and some bad umpiring decisions cost us in an evenly fought game.
Since we were not in full strength, we decided to play a defensive game and wait for counter-attacks and create penalty corners. The strategy was ok, but the execution was far from perfect.
Kishore Kumar, Khushmeet Bawa, who was declared player of the Inter-University Championship this year, and junior International Viren Rasquinha played well for us throughout the tourney.
WILL BHA & IHF FOLLOW THEM?:
I, like every discerning hockey player of the country, must praise the Karnataka State Hockey Association, former India captain M.P. Ganesh, sponsor Mr. Itagi for staging such a well organised tournament of this nature where the interest and welfare of the players were kept upper most. By this they have set a benchmark. I fondly hope both Indian Hockey Federation and Bombay Hockey Association, who must have watched them, will learn from them, and hopefully, will follow suit