Commonwealth Flash Back: KL 1998

Commonwealth Games was never in the minds of hockey writers till midway through the 90s. Shortly after it was allotted to Malaysia, that country showed interest to include hockey one of the disciplines. Their attempt proved successful. This has added another feather to the global hockey, another legacy has commenced.

It is to the credit of the Malaysians we got this new genre to talk about. Now, after three editions have been held, and as we are on the edge of hosting the fourth in Delhi, we are all nostalgic at the Malaysian vision, very much grateful for them.

The Malaysian also came up with a fantastic stadium to host the first hockey under this label in 1998. The facility created for the purpose at Bukit Jalil, with metro connectivity to boost, is fantastic. With all stands covered, the stands aligned rectangular in conformity with the linearity of the pitch, the amazing seating capacity, this stadium in concept and execution added colour to the hockey sport. As hockey on the turf at play with multitudes to witness in the stands, Bukit Jalil presented a great spectacle.

India was among the 12 countries to take part in the great meet in 1998 and be part of the great spectacle.

As usual, the Indian team preparation for the Kuala Lumpur meet was arduous, circuitous and with full of suspense.

The CWG took place after the Utrecht World Cup, where India had another of its endless fiascos. Naturally therefore heads had to roll, concept had to change, and of course a new coach had to come, all these time-tested ills of hockey repeated, one more cycle of Indian hockey stupidity.

The Indian Hockey Federation claimed in unequivocal terms that it is vexed of conducting trails for selecting teams, they will now use the MCC Cup as the selection tournament.

More than the tournament, what was the talk of the town for the whole ten days the tournament staged was – of course on the Mayor Radhakrishan Hockey Stadium turf, a great hockey facility created two years ago for the South Asian Federation Games – who will be the chief coach?

In the run up leading the Utrecht World Cup, local hero V. Baskaran was the coach. Whether he will be continued or someone will replace him was the suspense. Two persons other than Baskaran were gunning for the same — Colonel Balbir Singh, who had just resigned from the post of chief coach of women’s hockey team that participated in the Utrecht World Cup, and MK Kaushik. Both were present and witnessed the MCC Cup. An another Kaushik, the triple Olympian Hari Pal Kaushik, was also there as the selector.

Ultimately, MK Kaushik got the nod.

Close on the heels of his selection, a controversy arose when one of the selectors present there inadvertently provided a journalist a copy of the Utrecht World Cup report prepared by Baskaran.

Baskaran was candid in his assessment of players who let him down at Utrecht. He was particularly unhappy with captain Dhanraj Pillay who incidentally was unfit and injured to be in the team in the first place.

This is what Baskaran observed about Pillay in the report….With lot of controversies on his fitness level, he was included in the team. His performance in the World Cup was below par. His involvement with the tem and the management as captain was highly wanting. He may have performed or played well in the past, but of late he tends to concentrate more on other matters unconcerned to him and hence his performance had dropped badly…

Amidst the controversy, Kaushik was welcomed into the coaching realm though he was among the deputy coaches in the past.

So, what was then hogging the limelight was whether Kaushik would take the players whom outgoing coach Baskaran castigated in his report.

Kaushik did not go by his predecessor’s assessment of things, and for that the country paid heavily at the first Commonwealth Games.

This team in the Kuala Lumpur battlefield showed no change of fortune. Kaushik believed on experience, and gained later at the cost of this sojourn. The same team after four months won the Gold at the Asian Games after about three decades of lull.

First we restrict ourselves to CWG.

Goalie Jagdish Ponnappa was dropped, AB Subbaiah was brought in his place; Anil Aldrin went out, Cheops D’Souza came in the defence line. Rajesh Chauhan was another casualty, the gainer has been Daljit Sigh. The other most striking change was in the frontline. Devinder Kumar was dropped while Gagan Ajit and L. Prabhakaran were taken in.

India started the campaign on a disastrous note. It lost to Australia 2-5. Dilip Tirkey and Dhanraj Pillay, captain, scored a goal apiece in the second half.

After being down 0-1 in the first half, L. Prabhakaran and Baljit Singh scored a goal each to bring South Africa down 2-1. India won all three matches to enter the semis. It was expected India will blast the host there, but it did not happen. Malaysia at home is a difficult customer, and it was proved so again on 19th September 1998.

Mirnawan Nawami, the spearhead of Malaysian attack scored the golden goal in the extra time to enter the final at the cost of India who missed among other a large number of penalty corners.

On a recount of the past, one of the Indian forwards, who also played for Malaysian league in the past, considered ‘black magic’ from Malaysians did the damage, and it is well explained in Kaushisk’s event specific book ‘Golden Boot’.

India still had a chance to be on the podium, what with bronze medal match to be played. The hurdle was England which was one of its weakest in that decade.

Still, Mark Pearn equalized India’s 28th minute lead, and the extra time did not bring any cheers to both sides, and India lost out in the tie-breaker. The bronze went to England.

So, India returned empty handed.

This is the story of men.

What about our women. They also reached the semis, and what happened then?

Let us see those interesting moments in the next dispatch.

This is first part of Six Series.