Old hands snatch gold

Shivani Naik

It’s a generation of hockey players that faded off with a frustrating air of the unfinished about them. The wonder colts from the junior World Cup at Hobart in 2001, pillars of India’s strike force for the greater part of the last decade. Deepak Thakur and Prabhjot Singh would qualify as a blast from a very recent past, years blighted by India’s under-achievement and inability to qualify for the Olympics in 2008.

On Monday, in the finals of World Series Hockey, the duo forced the watching to take note of them and issued a reminder to not discard them from memory altogether, as they helped Sher-e-Punjab claim the inaugural title with a 5-2 win over an untiring Pune Strykers.

When Rajinder Singh was hoisted by the celebrating bunch, the image was a literal visual throwback to 11 years ago when he had helped a bunch of teens to the top of the world. Professing all-out attacking hockey, and unshakably confident in the abilities of his strikers to horde the field goals in the aided only by makeshift short corner specialists, Rajinder watched another inspired bunch go the distance – led once again by Thakur and Prabhjot.

Carbon-copy strikes — swift, pacy runs down the field with the goal in front and then wristy reverse flicks as the slanted body never once lost balance — from the twin-pair were the defining moments of the Sher’s victory on either side of the break. Their rivals from Pune could only sneak in the opener and a consolation penalty corner conversion to bring up the rear of the scoresheet in a resounding losing margin.

Still, with the Strykers’ reputation of comebacks, the narrow 2-1 lead for the Punjab side was never a cushion until the two forced their case with some eye-catching field goals — their team’s second, third and fourth, after VS Vinaya had negated the Stryker’s early goal through a PC variation. It was an almost slanted Prabhjot who scooped in from 20 yards to bulge the lead to 3-1, and was unstoppable volleying one into the net to put the finishing touches in the fading moments. Young Harpreet Singh had earlier converted a rare short corner.

It was as perfect as finals get – there couldn’t be a more firmer favourite than the Shers who boasted of several former India stars – including the fearsome sounding strike-trio of Deepak, Prabhjot and Gagan Ajit Singh. There couldn’t be a more under-whelming under-dog than the Pune Strykers, minus the big-city prefix and minus the big names. Their preferred mode of offense too couldn’t have been more different – the Shers ever-reliant, in defiance of current times, of field goals while the Strykers having relied on the short corners to erase 3-goal leads.

The comeback kids were quick on the offense today through Tyron Pereira. Shers forced a penalty corner on the counter immediately, and VS Vinaya equalised through a variation. Strykers’ custodian had a serious Monday job on his hands trying to stop the incisive runs of Deepak and more threateningly Prabhjot. Pune was awarded a penalty corner, but the resultant Mario Almada nudge-in was disallowed owing to height, one of their later attempts discounted for a stick-touch .

At the other end, Guri was on the ball and undesrtuctible when the Shers took position for the push-stop-flick routine, thrice thwarting his rivals’ projectiles and rebounds coming on him at bazooka-speeds. However he couldn’t stop Deepak’s body-contorting run and shot in front of the goal as he scooped one, twisting with his back to the goal to put the Shers 2-1 ahead in the 33rd minute. Rediscovering their verve a decade after they’d been similarly rampaging, Thakur and Prabhjot had found another stage to strut their stuff.