AI to miss Aga Khan Hockey Tournament

MUMBAI: India’s second oldest and the city’s most prestigious hockey event – the Aga Khan Hockey Tournament – will be revived after almost a decade. The irony, though, is that defending champions Air India will not be able to participate in the tournament, which was first played in 1896.

For, most of Air India players are away doing national duty, representing India at the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in Malaysia. A couple of them are busy playing in the German league, while a few of them were lost to transfers (from Air India to Indian Oil, BPCL etc).

“We have won almost all major tournaments in the country and we wanted to maintain the same momentum. Moreover, at this point we couldn’t field a strong playing squad. And fielding a team just for representation purposes didn’t make sense, so we decided not to participate,” Air India’s Olympian coach Gavin Fereira told TOI.

The tournament was last held in 2002 at the Bombay Gymkhana where Air India had defeated Punjab Police 2-1 to clinch the title. For the record,Punjab Police will also not be participating. “Punjab Police have not participated in any major tournament for the past two years. They just don’t have a competitive team,” Viren Rasquinha, Olympian and Olympic Gold Quest CEO, said.

Meanwhile, eight outstation teams – Indian Oil, Karnataka XI, Indian Customs, South Central Railway, BEG (Pune), BPCL, Indian Overseas Bank (Chennai) and RCF (Kapurthala) – have confirmed participation. In addition, eight local teams will vie for supremacy in this 4.50-lakh prize money tournament, which will be played between May 15-21.