‘Babu’ hockey from Jan 24

The All India KD Singh ‘Babu’ Sub-Junior (under-14) Boys’ Invitation Hockey Tournament will be held at Guru Govind Singh Sports College, Kursi Road, Lucknow from January 24 to February 2. The tournament is being sponsored by Balrampur Chini Mills Ltd. Kolkata. This is the 22nd consecutive year that the tournament is being organised by the KD Singh ‘Babu’ Memorial Society.

Addressing mediapersons, technical secretary of the ‘Babu’ Society, Olympian Syed Ali said, “Due to paucity of funds, only 18 teams were invited for participation this year and all the 18 teams will be participating the tournament. The participating teams include Shahbad Markanda (Haryana), Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Manipur, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Chennai, Bhiwani (Haryana), Dholpur, Udaipur, Uttarakhand, Cheema Academy, Jalandhar, Bihar, Delhi besides two teams from Chandigarh. The fixtures will be made on January 23 after the medical is conducted. Last year, UP XI and Cheema Academy were the winners and runners-up, respectively, while Bhiwani team had secured the third place. The winners and runners-up will become richer by Rs 25,000 and Rs 20,000, respectively, while the third positioners will be getting Rs 15,000. There will also be the Gyan Singh memorial fairplay trophy.

The UP team: Vikas Gaur, Siddharth, Vishal Singh, Dileep Rajbhar, Rahul Yadav, Sachin Yadav, Raj Kumar Pal, Vidhan Patel, Samarth, Ikhtidar, Gopi Sonker, Suraj Singh, Uttam, Dharmendra Yadav, Akshay Kumar Gupta, Saurabh Singh. Coach: Rashid Aziz; Manager: ML Shah.