Ace striker and Sundargarh’s superb jewel Jyothi Sunita Kullu, captain of Indian women hockey team, will be the flag bearer of the 400-strong Indian contingent for the Doha Asian Games, to be commenced in a fortnight’s time.
Asian Games, a brainchild of India and the offshoot of Western Asiatic Games – India hosted the inaugural editions of both at Delhi – is Asia’s biggest once-in-four-year sports mela.
It is honour for hockey, especially women’s hockey that one of its greatest players, Jyothi Sunita Kullu, has been selected for the rare honour. Its due to continuous endevour of India the women hockey has been introduced at the Asian Games in 1982, when it hosted the Games second time after 1951.
Kullu, a tribal player from the province which produced so many men’s hockey players such as Dilip Tirkey, Ignace Tirkey, and others, has been Indian women hockey team’s mainstay for more than a decade. She led India at the Madrid World Cup.
A prolific scorer and most accomplished player, Sunita was top scorer of many National Championships which her institutional team Railways won for a record 22 years.
All those officials behind the selection of one of the unassuming and simplest sportsperson like Jyothi Sunita Kullu deserves a pat on their pack.
Though it is not first time a women player is selected to lead the Indian contingent at the Asian Games, likes of sprint queen P.T. Usha have done it many times, it’s surely women hockey’s first.
Well done, Kullu. You deserved it. Very unfortunately, the doctor who made her comeback this year after a long spell of injury, Vikas Dhawan, is not part of the Women hockey contingent for the Doha, but we will reserve this topic discuss for other occasion.
Now its time to savour the great honour that has come to women hockey.
It is matter of satisfaction for this writer that Jyothi has been declared Hockey Year Book Player of the year twice in the past.