Azlan tit bits; Here and there

First person you talk to after landing in tournament cities are normally the taxi driver. Most of the times I visited this country, none of them would ever know hockey, on Wednesday it was different. The taxiwallah who fetched me from Ipoh bustand to Fair Park hotel is ‘a sports freak’ as he introduced himself. He says even a sports freak like him does not a major hockey tournament is taking place in his own city, and regrets he comes know of that through a foreigner. “They should advertise, how will we come to know otherwise? A badminton tournament is all over the television and newspapers, I know it is coming up. At the last he asked, is India there, they won it last time. I said yes, and instantly loved him calling himself a sports freak.

The team here has a massauer, Ramkishen, and then Pradeep Dutta returns to senior side after almost a year. He was last seen with the Junior team at Singapore in the Junior World Cup. Physio Shrikant Iyenkar is busy here. Gundeep Kumar and Clarence Lobo are others with the team, besides Chief coach Jose Brasa and coach Harendera Singh.

The teams are as usual put in Impiana hotel, which was till recently called Casuarina Hotel. It belongs to a family member of Sultan Azlan Shah. The Organizing committee and media secretariat all function from here.

It took hardly a couple of minutes to get Media Accreditation here, even the photo you gave is, promptly returned after scanned. Coming after all the horrors of World Cup accreditation, this was a big breather. Only problem here is not everyone is convinced am from India, as one put it, you are always here. I had to tell them I did not come for the last Azlan Shah.

It was almost my curiosity to know who is the manager of Indian team, though I had a gut feeling it could be Anupam Ghulati. If you don’t get manager’s name in the official press releases you can well guess he will be the man for the job. My guess was correct. However, as per the match sheet Harendera is manager which is a right strategic thing to do to keep the coach on the bench. Then what is the role of this gentleman? Your guess is as good as mine.

Raghu Prasad is the Indian umpire here, he must be happy, because he missed his chance to officiate in Delhi World Cup due to high fever. He partnered with Pakistan umpire Zulfiqar Haider in the first match. India – Pakistan bhai bhai.

There was an official welcome Dinner at Impiana hotel, which I missed but before that got a chance to be with the team for about an hour on the ground.