Dhamal Series 2012: A Series to exhaust the visitors
The opportunity to play at the world class playing surface is what every boy or girl who takes up hockey stick, wishes for. Its more so for the Garhi Himmat Singh boys — The sleepy village lies about two hours drive from Jaipur on national highway, where German enthusiast Andrea Thumshirn runs a hockey team under her Hockey Village India Foundation.
The visitors, at the end of three days tour, retuned exhausted, having played five matches against different teams, each of varying duration, though they virtually stayed in three morning session and two evening sessions.
The first match was at Srifort Sports Complex, grass ground, in South Delhi.
The boys were welcomed with each boy of the other team presenting a bouquet in the presence of sports enthusiast and advocate Rahul Mehra (in the Pic).
The team had landed Delhi by train only a couple of hours before the match, and traveled by road to stay in a Gurudwara before coming to another corner of the city.
Almost six hours journey did not damphen the visitors, who just lost the match by a whisker, the lone goal coming through the stick increasingly alert Anil Butt.
The second day was even more hectic. The team was ready to play whole day, almost virtually.
“Tire them out” said Andrea as the One Thousand Hockey Legs team managed to line up three teams for the day.
First Saket drew them 1-1, and the class of the visitors were well manifest in tireless ‘sardar’ of Garhi Himmat Singh, Ramesh Saini, who later was declared the ‘Best Player of the Series’.
Then came the Kulachi Hansraj Model School team, which came all the way from Ashok Vihar to National Stadium.
They were lucky to get away with just 0-1 defeat, though they earned more penalty corners then the ultimate victors.
Each match a Man of the Match was selected by the Stadium Coaches one from either side and a colourful certificate was given to them.
Perhaps the best match was played in the evening. A combined Saket and Begumpur team with sprinkling of boys from the Stadium trainees, put in 5-0 lead, but the exhausted visitors pulled a magic goal a few minutes before the hooter, an impeccable penalty corner conversion by Ramesh, again.
The last day was again hectic. The team had only one session, as it had to catch a train by noon.
Again a combined team engaged them, played each half 40 minutes, the result of course going to the hosts, a cocktail OTHL team, each different for each half.
“They slept as they reached the Gurudwara. They were damn tired”. These words of Andrea summed up aptly the state of affairs of a team that played five matches in 40 hours!
This is what the visitors exactly wanted, and the host provided fittingly.
Complete Results
Dhamal Hockey Series 2012 Results
13thJuly OTHL (Begumpur Govt. Sr. Sec. School) beat Hockey Village India 1-0
14th July OTHL (Saket Govt, Boys Sec. School) drew Hockey Village India 1-1
14th July OTHL (Kualachi Hansraj Model School) lost to Hockey Village India 0-1.
14th July OTHL (Saket + Begumpur Combined team) beat Hockey Village India 5-1.
15 th july OTHl (Combined) defeat Hockey Village India 4-0.
Player of the Series
Ramesh Saini