Who is Gurbaz?

Yesterday all newspapers nearly carried a news item captioned “Gurbaz Singh to lead India in the Junior Asia Cup”.

All they meat was Gurbaj Singh who has been a live wire for Indian teams since made his senior debut at the Doha Asian Games.

The press release by the Indian Olympic Association, which controls hockey through an ad hoc committee nowadays, made this mistake – putting z in place of j. Mis-spelling the captain of a team by their own administrators is surely condemnable but at least they can be given a discount because the are new. When you do a job at national level, there is no question of new or old, everyone is supposed to do things in professional manner.

But what is worrying more is the casualness with which the media went through the motion. The news agency report did not correct the spelling, so almost all newspapers carried out with the same mistake. Would they have done so in case of cricket or tennis?

Gurbaj is not a newcomer. He has been with the senior team for last two years as a mainstay. Why no newspaper corrected this mistake? One paper even went to the extent of putting Mandeep Antil’s photo and named him, again, Gurbaz!!!

Though there are no major international events in India, two publications in Delhi did not even present this news item to their readers.

The same press release mis-spelt AK Bansal as SP Bansal, most of them carried out as it is though some papers corrected it.

Hockey is facing a rough time and identity crisis. So much so even prominent players names go for a six

Ironically, the day these error reports were carried out is called Sports Journalists Day” and is celebrated world over.