K. ARUMUGAM

Arjuna and Dronacharya awardee Pritamrani Siwach, Bhim awardee Sandeep Kaur and former international goalkeeper Suman Jaswal, all in their 50s, came forward to play an exhibition match today at the Shivaji Stadium, New Delhi. The occasion was to remember their formative days coach late Olympian MK Kaushik on his birth anniversary which was today.

Former students of popular coach Kaushik have recently formed a team called, GOLDEN STARS. The trio were part of the team that took part in the MK Kaushik-OTHL Cup being organized by the Delhi based NGO, Hockey Citizen Group.

Golden Star thrashed young and upcoming OTHL XI team.

The day also marked another match, it was between OTHL boys XI and Ghumanhera Risers. The former won the tie 2-1, which is perhaps the first victory over the Risers in decades.

About two hundred players watched the Exhibition Matches. The successful conduct of the two matches and also the good turn out is significant because the city faced rough weather in the morning. Unexpected thunderstorm with devastating consequences like falling of tress, jammed traffic and shutdown of power were there but the spirit of the hockey community saw to it the events are not hampered, though schedule was redrawn.

Boys match between Ghumanhera Vs OTHL XI

Departed coach’s elder son Eshan was present in the occasion. Dronacharya awardee Narinder Singh Saini, who is also chief coach of the One Thousand Hockey Legs supervised the whole event, and guided OTHL team to decent performance.

The Golden Star team included Indian Junior Women’s team captain Preeti Singh, Jr international Manju among others.

OTHL’s goalkeeper Shabnam played superbly to deny them goals, but the visiting team overcame the resistance shortly with superb positional play.