Disappointing year ends on golden note
By Prabhjot Singh
THE year 1998, that got off to a disappointing start, climaxing into disaster at the Utrecht World Cup, has thankfully ended on a golden note for Indian hockey. It not only brought to an end a 32-year-long gold medal drought in the Asian Games, but also assured India, after a gap of two consecutive Olympics, a direct entry to the 2000 summer Olympic Games. The women hockey, after years in wilderness, has also returned to winning ways.

Glorious period for cricket
By Abhijit Chatterjee
INDIAN cricket never had it so good as it had in 1998. Not only did the national team play the highest number of one-day matches (40) among all the cricket playing countries but it also had some major successes. So much so that one would be inclined to say that after the World Cup win in 1983 the year gone by was probably India’s best as far as one-day cricket is concerned.

Tasks ahead of new golf club committee
By Himmat Singh Gill
OUT on the spacious green lawns of the Chandigarh Golf Club, in the late evening of a bitterly cold Saturday, the elections for the post of President and 11 members of the managing committee have just got over.

Fruitful 1998 for India
By Gopal Sharma

THE awesome potential displayed by Sachin Tendulkar, the sheer brilliance of Vishwanathan Anand, the gold medal win by Dingko Singh in the face of enormous odds, a rare golden double by Jyotirmoyee Sikdar, the historic Asian Games gold for the hockey team after a gap of 32 years and flashes of exuberance shown by Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathy were the highlights of Indian sports during the year about to be relegated to history.

The year saw chess wizard Anand in peak form. Anand established an early domination in international chess and maintained it to win four of the five super category tournaments. A highly successful year saw the “lightning kid” of chess win the Hoogovens tournament, the Linares tournament in Spain, Torneo Magistral in Madrid and the Flontys tournament. His Elo ratings soared and he also won the toughest rapid tournament in the game beating computer programme FRITZ at Frankfurt.

In hockey the team had mixed luck. The team finished a poor ninth in the Utrecht World Cup. During the eight-match hockey series played in Pakistan and India, the team, displaying skill and temperament established an early 3-1 lead over their arch rivals before squandering it during the home leg on account of injuries to some of the key players. The appointment of M. K. Kaushik in place of Vasudev Baskaran as team coach after the Commonwealth games saw a dramatic turnaround in the fortunes of the team. Playing with commendable teamwork and coordination the team humbled South Korea twice on way to a historical gold medal in the Asian Games. The Indians eves did not lag behind, winning silver.

The cricket buffs not only in India but world over are unlikely to forget the year in a hurry due to the exploits of Sachin Tendulkar. Stripping the master batsman of captaincy, in fact, proved to be a blessing in disguise for Indian cricket. Tendulkar, proved to be a blessing in disguise for Indian cricket. Tendulkar not having to bother for the trappings of leadership any more used his willow like a sledgehammer and piled up runs in plenty. So devastating was his form with the bat that the country achieved unprecedented success in international cricket, winning five one-day tournament and a one-day series against Zimbabwe. The Mumbai butcher” notched up nine one-day centuries during the year — a feat almost impossible to be repeated !

Tennis ace Leander Paes won his maiden ATP Tour title at Newport. Leander, who played with a lot of verve and enthusiasm, performed a giant killing act in the Pilot Pen meet, beating Pete Sampras, who ended the current year as world No 1 for the record sixth year in a row. In the Davis Cup world group qualifying match in England he was unlucky against big serving Greg Rusedski and lost after waging a marathon battle for three hours 16 minutes. Leander and Mahesh Bhupathy earned some notable successes in doubles and finished the year as the World No 3 pair. Mahesh’s performance, in mixed doubles, though was not good enough for a title, was quite admirable. Nirupama Vaidyanathan became the first woman ever in India to register a victory in a grand slam event, when she won the first round in the Australian Open at the start of the year.

The athletes brought cheers in the Asian Games when middle distance runner Jyotirmoyee Sikdar ended the gold drought through a superb triumph in 1500 metres. The Bengal girl made it truly memorable when she added another gold in her favourite 800 metre event for a unique golden double as the squad garnered 15 of the 35 medals won by the country.

In Calcutta wiry Paramjit Singh obliterated the four-decade old Indian record in 400 metres set by “Flying Sikh” Milkha Singh in the Rome Olympics, Geet Sethi won his fourth world billiards title at Ahmedabad.

In badminton Aparna Popat won the French Open and a silver in Commonwealth Games, while P Gopi Chand did well to reach the pre-quarterfinals in the All-England championship and won a bronze in the Commonwealth Games.

A keyed up Jitender Kumar exhibiting boxing skills and power won a silver in Kuala Lumpur. Dingko Singh, who was feeling cheated and looked dejected until his name was cleared for the Commonwealth Games, responded in a magnificent manner by winning gold for the country after a gap of 16 years. En route to the gold medal win the gutsy Manipur lad eliminated world No 5 Uzbeck Timur Tulyakov in the semis and world No 3 Thai Boxer Somtai Wongplrats in the final.

Indian cricket suffered a big blow when former international cricketer Raman Lamba lost his life while playing in Dhaka. The Asian Games also saw the fading away of Asian sprint queen P T Usha, who after failing to be among the medals in the competitions she competed in was dropped from the 4x400 metre relay squad.

Despite all these achievements, the year was not devoid of controversies — the bitterest perhaps being the stand-off between the IOA and the BCCI over the cricket team’s composition for the Commonwealth Games. Earlier, the association as well as the board stuck to their guns and each wanted to have a final say in the selection of the team. But a sudden climbdown by the BCCI saw Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble, Ajay Jadeja and Robin Singh join the squad for Commonwealth Games, while the rest proceeded for Toronto. The splitting of the team and its effect had the Jadeja-led team give a lacklustre performance while the Azar-led squad was routed 1-4 at Toronto.

M.K. Kaushik, the coach of the gold-medal winning squad at the Asiad, immediately after the team’s landing at Mumbai issued a statement saying he would not like to continue as coach even if he was granted an extension by the IHF.” It would be difficult for me to do the job ... I had given some plans which they (IHF officials) have not implemented. A lot of things have been promised but not delivered,” fumed an exasperated Kaushik implying thereby that all was not well with the IHF working.

Earlier the legendary allrounder Kapil Dev surprised many when he demanded a CBI probe into match fixing and betting. Speaking to a private TV channel Kapil said that if the BCCI was unable to handle the matter itself then the inquiry should be done by a government agency or the CBI and the truth must be found out even if crores had to be spent.

There was also a revolt by the hockey team just before its departure to Pakistan over the payment issue. The year also saw the exclusion from the cricket team of Rajesh Chauhan and Harbhajan Singh, both off-spinners on ‘throwing’ charges, at the behest of the ICC.

Overall, the year proved fruitful for the Indian sport.The recent statement by the Prime Minister effecting a steep hike in prize money for the medal winners at the Asian Games should spur budding sportspersons to work harder for better achievements at the international level.

Disappointing year ends on golden note
By Prabhjot Singh

THE year 1998, that got off to a disappointing start, climaxing into disaster at the Utrecht World Cup, has thankfully ended on a golden note for Indian hockey. It not only brought to an end a 32-year-long gold medal drought in the Asian Games, but also assured India, after a gap of two consecutive Olympics, a direct entry to the 2000 summer Olympic Games. The women hockey, after years in wilderness, has also returned to winning ways.

Frankly speaking, the turnaround at Bangkok was not fully expected. Neither the Indian Hockey Federation nor our national team had done anything worthwhile prior to the Asian Games to raise expectations back home. Dhanraj Pillay and his boys, however, cannot be denied much deserved felicitations for playing, after a long time, like a well knit team. The same was the case with our women’s team which played like a possessed team after finishing at the bottom at Utrecht.

The game has been changing rapidly. From the New Year, several more changes will be gradually effected. The foremost of these will be the change in the format of international competitions organised by the Federation Internationale de Hockey (FIH). Though in the revised format, qualifying for World Cup will be much easier because of the increased number of teams in each of the four sections — junior men, junior women, men and women — the Olympic format will remain unchanged.

In the men’s section, India had played in both the Olympic Qualifying Tournaments — Auckland 1991 for the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games and 1996 at Terrassa for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. After 1988, it is for the first time that India is a direct qualifier for the Olympic Games. Pakistan, on the other hand, will play for the first time in the Olympic Qualifying Tournament.

Indian women will still have to qualify for the Olympic Games. The only time they played in the Olympics was in 1980 at Moscow following boycott by the US and several European countries. They had finished fourth then.

Hockey, in spite of all changes, continues to get the least media attention, print media in general and electronic media in particular. For example, of the 12 nations that competed in men’s section in the Utrecht World Cup Hockey Tournament, the electronic media of seven countries, including Germany, totally ignored the event. Newspapers of these seven countries, too, did not carry any extensive coverage of the World Cup. Only a few newspapers in these countries carried results in brief.

To overcome this problem and make hockey more marketable, the FIH has contemplated several changes in the game, including dress of players.Nothing white below the knees is permitted in international hockey. This has been necessitated to facilitate television coverage of the game. Compared to hockey, television coverage of cricket has made it the biggest entertainment industry in India today. The story is the same in almost all cricket playing nations where a huge chunk of revenue comes from sale of TV rights of all international events.

Though the frequency of hockey events has increased manifold, hardly any sponsorship from the electronic media is coming its way.

For its survival, the FIH is ready to do anything to attract visual media to the game. During the Junior World Cup at Milton Keynes, the organisers had to pay to get TV coverage of some of the select games.The situation is, however, different, both in India and Pakistan where electronic media continues to be the biggest sponsor of the game. Doordarshan, for example, has signed an agreement with the IHF that it would pay Rs 5 lakh for exclusive coverage of each of the grade A tournament throughout the country. Similarly, each international game played in the country makes the IHF richer by Rs 5 lakh.

The IHF, however, pays 15 per cent commission to a company floated by a family member of its PRO, Mr Krishna Mack. The commission each year runs into lakhs of rupees. In fact, the organisers of these tournaments get nothing. Initially IHF had promised to pay prize money amounting to about a lakh of rupees to each of these tournaments besides waiving the registration fee. But subsequently, the IHF not only insisted on payment of registration fee but also refused to pay the promised prize money. The organisers of Beighton Cup, the oldest tournament of the game, which is even older than the Olympic Games Hockey tournament, once paid on its own the prize money but never got it reimbursed from the IHF.

These issues apart, the hockey in India has been given a life saving dose in the shape of the Asian Games gold. A cross section of Olympians, international players and organisers are categoric in their observation that but for the Bangkok Asian Games gold, the hockey would have slowly died down.

Of late, the focus of Indian hockey has shifted from its home base, the north to the south. In the forthcoming international series against Pakistan, but for a Test in Delhi, no game has been scheduled for the entire North. All major events and international games have been wittingly hijacked to down south leaving the north in the cold. Even west, which boasts as a second home to hockey, gets ignored.

Participation in the postponed tournament at Cairo, home and away series against Pakistan are the major events scheduled for the first half of the next year for Indian men’s hockey. Since India did not qualify for the Champions Trophy, it does not have any major FIH tournament to play in 1999. Besides the Champions Trophy at Brisbane, the only other major hockey event is the Pan American Games to be held at Calgary in Canada in July next year.

The focus would be on composition of Indian team for the future tournaments, including the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. The immediate debate is about the continuation of senior players like goalkeepers AB Subbiah and Asish Ballal, fullback Anil Aldrin, halfbacks Ramandeep Singh and Mohammed Riaz and forwards Mukesh Kumar, Dhanraj Pillay and Sabu Verkay.The IHF must take an early decision about them and start preparations for the Olympics in right earnest.

Glorious period for cricket
By Abhijit Chatterjee

INDIAN cricket never had it so good as it had in 1998. Not only did the national team play the highest number of one-day matches (40) among all the cricket playing countries but it also had some major successes. So much so that one would be inclined to say that after the World Cup win in 1983 the year gone by was probably India’s best as far as one-day cricket is concerned.

This calendar year India have won six limited-over titles out of nine. The title winning spree has put India in the second position among of all the cricket playing countries. The Sharjah win in November last was India’s 17th triumph since the 1983 World Cup (in tournaments involving three or more nations). No other cricket playing country has recorded so many title wins. Australia, with 16 titles under their belt, is behind India.

India’s victory march began with the Independence Cup in Bangladesh in January. India beat Pakistan in the final in a match in which more than 600 runs were scored. This was followed by victories in the Coca-Cola Cup in India, the Coca-Cola Cup in Sharjah, the Sri Lanka Independence Cup and another Coca-Cola Cup in Sharjah in November.

India lost to Australia in the triangular series final in New Delhi after winning all the four league matches, suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of Pakistan in the Sahara Cup at Toronto (but this defeat can be laid on the doors of the national selectors of the Board of Control for Cricket in India which experimented with fielding two teams of “equal strength” in the Kuala Lumpur Commonwealth Games and the Sahara Cup) and in the International Cricket Council Mini World Cup where India got the better of Australia only to lose to the West Indies whose cricketing credentials, of late, have been rather poor. In between India also beat Zimbabwe in a one-day series by 2-1 in Zimbabwe.

When a team is winning there is very little criticism. Last year when Sachin Tendulkar was in charge of the squad the team was losing match after match, series after series. But now under the stewardship of Mohammad Azharuddin the team is going from win to win and nobody is questioning the wisdom of playing so much cricket, and that too mostly in the sub-continent. With the next World Cup scheduled to be held in England next year in May-June, the national squad might have benefited more if it had played more cricket on quicker surfaces than it did this year.

The World Cup in England will be an altogether different ball game. There may be no big totals as the pitches there will definitely help the bowlers. It, however, remains to be seen how the “new one-day doctrine” adopted by most teams, after it was introduced by Sri Lanka’s Sanath Jayasuriya and later refined by Sachin Tendulkar will be put into operation in England next year.

India did extremely well in one-day cricket but it played only four Test matches in the whole year (this article was written before the commencement of the India-New Zealand Test series) — three against Australia at home and one against Zimbabwe in Zimbabwe. While India got the better of Australia by a 2-1 margin because of the home advantage (read designer pitches), it lost to Zimbabwe in Harare.

India’s success in one-day cricket can be attributed to a large extent to the form of Sachin Tendulkar and the opening partnership he has forged with Saurav Ganguly. Tendulkar and Ganguly have amassed 2664 runs in 53 innings and only the West Indies pair of Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes and the Australian pair of David Boon and Geoff Marsh are ahead of the Indians. The Tendulkar-Ganguly duo also hold the world record for the highest opening partnership in limited over cricket — their 252 in the final of the Sri Lanka Independence Cup. The explosive start given by this pair has played a stellar role in India’s high success rate.

With nine centuries to his credit this year Sachin Tendulkar has given a new meaning to one-day cricket. An astonishing average of 65.31 (total runs 1894 from 34 matches) has proved to the cricketing world that the diminutive batsman from Mumbai is currently the best in the business. Only on one occasion when Tendulkar cracked a century India lost a match. Relieved of the burden of captaincy, Tendulkar has enjoyed every minute of his stay at the crease. His commitment to the game can be best seen from his performance in the Sahara Cup where he flew half way round the world and yet was able to score a half century in the last match against Pakistan in the five-match series.

Besides Tendulkar other Indian batsmen have also been among the runs. Saurav Ganguly scored 1328 runs (average 41.50) with four centuries, while skipper Mohammad Azharuddin, who this year became the cricketer with the highest number of one-day match appearances, scored 1268 runs (average 43.72) with three centuries as also Ajay Jadeja who scored 1004 runs with an average of 47.80. Jadeja hit up two centuries in the year. All these batsmen have been instrumental in taking India to the pinnacle of glory in the shorter version of the game.

If Indian batsmen have come good this year the bowlers have not lagged behind. Ajit Agarkar, who came into international cricket only this year, has already taken 58 wickets at 23.74 runs a piece. (It is a different matter that he had to opt out of the tour of New Zealand with a stress fracture in his left leg forcing him to take a rest of four weeks). Javagal Srinath with 37 wickets at an average of 22 has also redeemed himself after injuring his rotary cuff last year. Anil Kumble and Venkatesh Prasad have also done well. All these bowlers will have a major role to play in the coming World Cup campaign. Sachin Tendulkar has taken 24 wickets this year to prove, if proof is indeed needed, that he is a complete cricketer the like of whom can be seen only very rarely.

This year we have played against Australia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, New Zealand and the West Indies, besides of course Bangladesh and Kenya. But we have not played two teams — South Africa and England — who may pose the biggest challenge to our 1999 World Cup campaign.

Badminton: best since 1982
By Arvind Katyal

THE great armoury of Indian badminton led by Aparna Popat and Gopi Chand never had it so good since 1982 when in those Asian Games three bronze medals were pocketed. After 16 years, this year the Indian badminton has taken an upsurge with the emergence of Aparna and Gopi Chand along with a host of other badminton players on the Indian horizon like Nikhil Kanetkar, Abhin Shyam Gupta, to name a few.

The fine showing by Popat, the 20-year-old at the World Junior Championships where she finished second, and silver medallist at the 1998 Kuala Lumpur Commonwealth games in the team Championships in the same games. Then our national champion Gopi Chand led the Indian team with a silver medal in the team championship by surprising all with a fine win over England in the semi-final and losing in the final to host Malaysia and the 1996 Thomas Cup winners.

The recent year’s performance has put a question as to why there is sudden spurt in Indian badminton successes? We can assume that Bangalore-based Prakash Padukone academy deserves al kudos for sharpening the skills and bettering the performance of Indian players. Prakash Padukone whose earlier career took off after he won a gold medal at Edmonton (Canada) Commonwealth Games in 1978, and later in 1980 he became the World No 1, is now nurturing the same kind of enthusiasm and evolving strategies to build world-class players.

At the Bangalore academy, former national star Uday Pawar and Hyderabad-famed coach S.M. Arifare also helping Prakash in honing the skills of players.

In the recently-concluded Asian Games, where all the top countries participated, two main architect of Indian badminton, Gopi Chand and Aparna Popat represented India. While Gopi Chand who is now ranked 50th in the world went down fighting to second seed Yong Hock of Malaysia in the quarterfinal, Aparna who had a bone spur in her right heel lost to Mee Feng of Malaysia.

The excellent performance at the Commonwealth Games have made India a great force to reckon with India’s previous best showing was in 1982 when only individual medals came in singles through late Syed Modi, Leroy D’sa and Pradeep Gandhe (doubles) but not any medal in the team championship. But at the Commonwealth Games, our performance was best in team events also and giant-killer England were beaten by 2-3 score. Similarly the women’s team also defeated England.

Inspiration has to travel down the line when its superiors and seniors perform well. The young players coming of age are Nikhil Kanetkar, Abhin Shyam, Srikant Bakshi and Sachin Ratti among boys. Nikhil the 21-year-old Maharashtra boy is shaping very well alongwith Abhim Shyam who originally hails from Uttar Pradesh and plays with long rallies and has the shadows of late Syed Modi.

The great performance of Indian badminton team during this year had certainly brought cheers to this game lovers. The fact is that exposure at the international level is must for Indian players because that gives greater temperament, confidence, and more points in the international circuit, thus improving the rankings. Gopi Chand despite knee injury that have been prolonged for many years has the ability to challenge top players. Similarly, it is for 20-year-old Aparna how soon she can make it to top 10 of the world, because as Prakash says, she has the poise to become the world star. The other juniors on of the Indian badminton scene are also determined to follow the footsteps of their ideal superstars. However, much depends on the new-look Badminton Association of India who has the desired backing of badminton legend Prakash Padukone. The academy on this pattern for all zones can be planned and only then can we hope for a long term success in badminton.

Tasks ahead of new golf club committee
By Himmat Singh Gill

OUT on the spacious green lawns of the Chandigarh Golf Club, (CGC), in the late evening of a bitterly cold Saturday, the elections for the post of President and 11 members of the managing committee have just got over. The fate of the four who contested for the chair of the President, and over 30 for the committee, has been decided by secret ballot, and one wishes the new incumbents a happy year of golfing, and if one may add, a fruitful and constructive stewardship of the most prestigious golf and country club in north India.

The CGC has provided us with many happy hours, and it is undoubtedly the town’s best. But let me add in all honesty and no offence for the CGC to overtake the tally in Calcutta, the Delhi Golf Club or some others in the country, before we can really take a breather, and say, ah, all is well with us”. So along with the felicitations for the new management, comes along a bagful of challenges and onerous responsibility.

The primary concern of a golf club, is the game of golf, where the members come to play the game, and then relax in the balmy club premises. The name of the game is etiquette on the course, and off it. In any case, it is not (primarily ) a meeting-place for social gatherings and other receptions, for which the more appropriate venue is your own home or a five star hotel. You would be surprised that out of over 1600 members of all categories now on the rolls of the CGC just over one fourth play the game regularly. For many it is more of a status- symbol, and they appear once in a while, as at the annual election time, and then like birds they are gone. This is the kind of a situation which leads to a blocking in the intake of new members. If one is really not interested in the game, would it not be better that you take on the membership of some other club in town. And those whom we admit as our members, must set about the highest standards of personal restraint on and off the course, display a high concern for etiquette and finesse, and be truly their own self-appointed custodians of an effervescent style and elan, which can only be found on the golfing greens. The game rules are the same even for the 19th hole, to which we often adjourn after the game for a cool soda or a tumbler of iced beer. The game must occupy the centre-stage, and not quite often the loud socialising, which has become the hallmark of many of our other clubs in the country.

Another matter which has often been misread, is over the approach to this whole question of training up our young golfers to become world beaters and national champions. Whereas there is absolutely nothing wrong in this ( and we are proud of our Harmeet Kahlons and Parineeta Garewals ), it must never be forgotten that a golf club exists for all the others too, of varying ages, and varying handicaps. Too many tournaments, mostly sponsored by multinationals and industrial houses, may be great news for the club and might even add some pluses to its financial ledgers, but the fact remains that it definitely reduces the playing time of the average golfer, who would rather be out there on the course playing his kind of golf , than crying hoarse for a tee-off time, or clapping away at prize distribution ceremonies, which regrettably have now become rather frequent. In these days of big money on every golfing circuit, it is enticing for a management to become tournament minded, but this is necessarily not a very good thing for the game of golf. Or the average golfer, if one may add. A laidback, cultured and sophisticated sports club can never sacrifice its atmosphere and its hallowed portals, at the alter of the various sponsorship and the mullah they often bring in their wake.

Another point that comes to one’s mind is the large infrastructure and the buildings that have now taken over the sprawling complex adjacent to the Punjab Raj Bhavan. the current joke going round the club house that one management `breaks’ and another `makes’. That is, the construction infrastructure! A perfectly comfortable and well-decored club house being now available to the members , there is little need to spend so much time (and money) on fresh construction activity. Perhaps the need now is to clean up the fairways of all the weeds the putting greens of all the uneven surfaces so that they play true, and the bunkers cleared of the saggy clayed-up sand, for the sand wedge to be able to operate freely and not get stuck, with the poor player spiked good and proper to the ground. the course needs to be watered , but after the game is over, and not when play is on; for the raw smelly water that is sprayed is not only a wet nuisance but a clear health hazard for those who are unfortunate to be caught in its sweep.

A golf club has to have a band of dedicated and well-trained caddies, managed by an efficient master. This is the crying need of the CGC and there is no reason that with the handsome remuneration that a caddie gets, the management cannot bring this essential service up to the mark. An indifferent or clueless caddie has often ruined a perfectly good day of golf.

A good club anywhere in the world, acquires its own character and pitch over the years. While it provides its members all the comfort and privacy they desire, it also expects in return a positive contribution from each and every member within its fold. It is not an arena for resolving personal differences, nor should it be a stepping-stone for uplifting ones own social standing in society. The younger members must learn from seniors in the club, the eminent and the elders become a little more understanding of the youth and the young blood. It should be the new committees’ endeavour to see that both the blood streams fuse together in a harmonious blend.

Now that the din of electioneering and the selection of a new managing committee is behind us, let us the senior members of the CGC give the new members an appropriate lead to really bring up the club to truly national and then international standards, both in the game and in its etiquette.