Players rejoice Aga Khan tourney revival

Sudheendra Tripathi, TNN

MUMBAI: The revival of the prestigious Aga Khan hockey tournament has given a lot of joy and a glimmer of hope to the city’s hockey fraternity. For, top quality hockey had vanished from the city for almost two years. The feuding Bombay Hockey Association officials have ensured that the Mumbai league was not conducted.

The same officials ensured that the Bombay Gold Cup and the Tegh Bahadur tourneys were scrapped too. As a result, city’s hockey aficionados were deprived of some quality hockey dished out by brilliant teams Indian Oil Corporation, BPCL, Indian Airlines (now Air-India), Punjab and Sind Bank, Namdhari XI to name a few.

Railways’ Sports Board, in fact, had to redesign their recruitment norms. For, to get an employment a player has to be a gold winner in the nationals/junior nationals or be member of the intervarsity winning team. But, barring the Inter-varsity tournament held earlier this year, none of the tournaments have been conducted. Adding to the players’ woes are these warring officials.

The Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) had in fact dashed a letter to all the participating teams to not participate in the Aga Khan tournament, suggesting that it was illegitimate. But because city’s players were deprived of a tournament for such a long time, they decided to go ahead and participate.

“We have no tournament left,” said one player. “Phir yeh officials bolte hain ki yahan khele aur wahan mat khelo. All of us are so so confused,” he said. “But I am glad that top-flight hockey is back in the city,” the player added.

Like players, city’s umpires have also borne the brunt of no hockey in the city. “I am international umpire so I get to do events around the country,” umpire Javed Shaikh said. “What about the others?” he asked.