Veterans show their skills, Olympic XI emerge winners

BETUL: In a match between veteran hockey players, Olympics XI trounced World Cup XI 7-2 on Saturday night at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium.

The match was organised by a local Social and Cultural Association named “Pratidhwani” to promote hockey in which players who helped India clinch 1975 Hockey World Cup and 1980 Moscow Olympic took part.

Dhanraj Pillai of Olympics XI, who scored as many as three goals in the match, was declared man-of-the-match.

Govinda scored the first goal of the match in the 10th minute while Ashok Dhyanchand scored the second for World Cup XI.

Pillai struck three goals in 20th, 45th and 51st minutes forcing the opponent team to play a defensive game.

Four more goals were scored by Olympic XI, Sameer Daad (32nd minute), Deepak James (35th minute) and Altaf-ur-Rehman (58th and 61st minutes) and won the match 7-2.

Apart from Pillai, Olympic XI comprised Jalaluddin Rizvi, Abdul Aziz, Sameer Daad, Deepak James, Altaf-ur-Rehman, Gauhar, Nazeer, Jaan-e-Sherkhan, Hasrat Bakhsh and Mohammad Ameen while Aslam Sher Khan, Ashok Deewan, Govinda, Ashok, Dhyamchand, L Fernandez, Omkar Singh, W Carnvilis, Sayyed Ali, Mohammad Yusuf, Salim Abbasi and M Shah played for World Cup XI.

Both the teams were assisted by local hockey players from Betul.

Earlier, a rally was organised to welcome the veteran hockey players to the city and a replica of 1975 World Cup was presented to them.