Delhi OTHL wins the Sr.Series while DPS Kalyanpur the junior title
It’s a new concept: To play test series against another team in another city. Hockey Citizen Group, which runs its flagship program One Thousand Hockey Legs, realized this yesterday.
A 25-member team comprised of best talents of eight schools of Delhi OTHL, visited Kanpur, a city 400 km away from Delhi, and engaged Delhi Public School there in a test series.
The delhi team was selected after Delhi Cup held last November.
Both teams had a junior and senior team. Each played three matches, each on a day, in the friendly series.
The boys enjoyed the joy of playing the same team thrice, unlike in tournaments where you play other team only once.
Delhi Public School boys, with amazing progress they made in the last 2 years since the top Kanpur school joined One Thousand Hockey Legs, took the series the seriousness the venture deserved.
They surprised the visiting team with a 1-1 draw in the junior division. The match was played in the green Kalyanpur grounds. Coaches of both teams, Arvind Katiyal and Dharm Pal Singh officiated as umpires.
This draw seemed to have infused lot of energy with the senior boys. They too equally surprised the visitors with a narrow but deserving 1-2 win. So, the series took off seriously on Day One.
Two matches were held next day in the centrally located Green Park stadium, which is basically an international cricket stadium, but has a sporting complex, where hockey is sometimes played on a common ground with football.
Neutral umpires were brought in, and both the matches were well fought.
The visiting Delhi One Thousand Hockey Legs team, which struggled on the first day, showed its class. Subhas Nagar’s boy Rizwan ripped apart the defence of Kalyanpur team, and struck a hattrick.
We were surprised to spot a couple of photographers and journalists for the match. Rizwan’s hat-trick helped Delhi team to defeat Kalyanpur colts 3-1.
The senior match on the day was intense, though goals are not galore. Kalyanpurs captain and goalie did exceedingly good job to prevent visitors from going rampage.
The match was a 1-1 draw.
Third day belonged to Kalyanpur grounds. Their junior team now struck three goals with a lone reply.
With a draw, and a win, but with a goal more than the hosts, the hosts won the Junior Series.
Now the honour of the visiting team was at stake when both teams lined up before their principal Archana Nigam.
Brigopal and Mukul Shama, scored a goal apiece and then in the second half, which witnessed even umpires walking out on difference with each other in some decisions and lot of physical game was played out, could not bring any results.
Again, with a draw, and loss, but with a goal scored more than the hosts, Delhi won the senior series.
Principal Nigam assured a return visit. The request for the DPS Kalyanpur to visit was made by Hockey Citizen Group founder and CEO Arumugam in the trophy awarding function.
“Yes. It’s a good proposal. As you have mentioned, the boys will have ideal opportunity to play in the stadium where world cup and commonwealth games were held’, she said in her reply.
Five boys were selected as best players and were presented with hockey book and a branded t-Shirt.
Both teams went into a dizzy when the trophies were presented to them.
Junior team captain took the mike and did a good commentary of all the matches, which was appreciated by the school head as well.