India’s most volatile pugilist
By S. Rifaquat Ali
Ngangom Dingko Singh is the most popular name in Indian boxing. If you take my word, the most feared name too. Twenty-year-old Dingko Singh was born on New Year’s Day in Lamlong, a remote area in Huidrom in Imphal district. There could not have been a better New Year’s gift to his parents than the birth of a legend in a state where sports hold a low key.

Highest-ever partnerships
By S. Pervez Qaiser
Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid added 331 runs for the second-wicket partnership in the second one-day international match against New Zealand at Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium, Hyderabad, on November 8, 1999, which is the highest ever partnership in one-day internationals.

Sport Mail

Aiming to finish among top five
By Abhijit Chatterjee

Barely four months into professional golf, former national amateur champion Harmeet Kahlon is aiming to finish among the top five in the PGA of India Order of Merit-1999 as also win the Rookie of the Year Award. At the moment he is placed fifth in the Mahindra ranking. The Chandigarh-based golfer would also like to qualify for the Asian PGA tour next year.

For the Asian PGA tour the qualifying school would be conducted at Malaysia. While Harmeet has set his eyes to take part in the qualifying tournament, he would also like to take one of the exempt spots reserved for India. But for that he would have to win a major tournament in the country.

And so far he has not done badly in the professional circuit. Currently he is heading the list of contestants for the Rookie of the Year Award, ahead of Digvijay Singh. Also, his performance in the various tournaments he has taken part so far has been satisfactory. His first foray as a pro golfer was in the Color Plus Open in Chennai from September 7 to 10 last where he finished 17th. In the next tournament, the Wills Southern Open at Bangalore, he had to be content with the 14th spot. But after that his performance improved by leaps and bounds. What really boosted his morale is the fact that in both the Bangalore and Chennai competitions he had sub par cards.

In the Surya Nepal Open at Kathmandu in October he lost to Rohtas Singh in the play-off for the title. In the next tournament, the Shell-Aravalli Open at Faridabad, he again took the second spot behind Vishal Singh of Jaipur. And in the Hero Honda Masters at Delhi he finished 11th in a very strong field. Now he has his eyes on the Rs 10 lakh Hero Golf Tournament at Chandigarh ( a place where he has learnt the fundamentals of the game and where he has consistently done well) and later on the Honda-SIEL PGA in Delhi. While the Chandigarh tournament is scheduled to be held from November 18 to 21 the Delhi tournament will be played from November 25 to 28. After the completion of these two tournaments he will head for the eastern zone to play in Assam and Bihar.

Now in Chandigarh for a short holiday before he returns to the circuit, Harmeet explained that so far he was satisfied with his game given the tough competition posed by players who had turned pro much before him.

When I met Harmeet at the Chandigarh Golf Club course he had just finished a round of practice. He disclosed that now that he was dependent on the game for his livelihood he was giving everything to the game and was practising for over eight hours a day. And to keep fit he had taken to running and physical conditioning under the guidance of Panjab University athletic coach Sukhwinder Singh. Now 29 years old, Harmeet is confident that he would be able to play competitive golf till the age of 45. And to do so he aims to keep himself physically fit .

The Chandigarh golfer, an employee of Oil India Limited working as Officer on Special Duty, owes a lot to Hero Honda which has supported him over the past two years, paying for his coaching under Dr Donato Di Poziano, a leading coach of Europe and Deputy Chairman of Europe’s Advance Teaching Committee on Golf, in Italy.

Harmeet was frank to admit that he turned pro after achieving all there was to achieve as an amateur — he was India’s top amateur for six years in a row — and was motivated to do well as a professional while playing against the best players the game has produced. He also took encouragement from the fact that in the 1988 World Amateur Championship for the Eisenhower Trophy in Santiago, Chile, he secured the 11th position and finished ahead of top American players like Matt Kucchar. Last year he also won the title in the Panasonic Saujana Open in Malaysia. He was awarded the Arjuna Award last year. His moment of glory as an amateur player came when he won the Asia Pacific Individual Golf Championship in Hong Kong in 1997, the first Indian to do so.

Although Harmeet is a gentleman pro he spends a lot of time with the caddie while on the course, be it in Chandigarh or elsewhere. He is proud of the fact that Ali Sher, who was a caddie right up to 1985-86, is a very good friend and both spend a lot of time whenever together in any tournament discussing golf. Closer at home he has helped out caddies even with equipment so that they can improve their game.

Harmeet admits that the life of a golfing pro is lonely and for that he is thankful to his wife, Shalini, a professional in her own right, who has accompanied him to a number of tournaments.

India’s most volatile pugilist
By S. Rifaquat Ali

Ngangom Dingko Singh is the most popular name in Indian boxing. If you take my word, the most feared name too. Twenty-year-old Dingko Singh was born on New Year’s Day in Lamlong, a remote area in Huidrom in Imphal district. There could not have been a better New Year’s gift to his parents than the birth of a legend in a state where sports hold a low key.

Dingko Singh shot into prominence when he was just eleven years of age. He won the sub-junior national boxing title in 1989 at Ambala and never looked back ever since. A product of the Special Area Games scheme, launched by the Sports Authority of India, under the surveillance of Major O.P.Bhatia, the present Executive Director of the Teams Wing in the Sport Authority of India Dingko Singh showed his class and pluck in the King’s cup in Thailand in 1997 where he was declared the best boxer of the meet.

Dingko Singh established himself as a super boxer in the country, but his real power and punch was seen in the last Asian Games in Bangkok where he tore apart the world No. 5 pugilist from Uzbekistan, Timur, in the final, after winning triumphantly in the semi-final against world No. 3, Wong Prates Sontaya of Thailand. His victory over Sontaya was no flash in the pen.

He was a wounded lion, after his name was dropped from the list of the Indian contingent to the Bangkok Asiad and he went wild, indulging in excessive drinks and losing his senses. Eventually, he was included in the Indian boxing team on ‘no cost to the government’ basis much to the relief of the national boxing coaches and the foreign expert who had expressed shock over the exclusion of his name. Apparently, Dingko Singh was a ferocious tiger in the boxing ring at Bangkok where he won the gold medal with ease and grace to the surprise of one and all.

Dingko Singh told me recently in an informal discussion “I do not know why I was dropped from the Indian boxing team to the Bangkok Asian games.” This will remain a mystery for ever, and it will be wise to look ahead than to look back at someone’s misdeed.

Back from the Bangkok Asian Games, Dingko Singh did not take time off for relaxation since he had already set his eyes on the forthcoming Sydney Olympic Games next year to create boxing history as no Indian pugilist has ever won a medal in the Olympics.

The history of Indian boxing is not embellished with world class pugilists. Today, three Indian pugilists are in the AIBA ranking — Dingko Singh, Jitendra Kumar and Gurcharan Singh. “The Indian boxers have a long way to go to catch up with world class boxers,” says the chief national boxing coach Gurbax Singh Sandhu. Cuban boxing expert B.I.Fernandez, who is with the Indian boxing team which is preparing for Sydney Olympics, rates Dingko Singh very high: he is undoubtedly a world class boxer, says Fernandez. “Our boxers are very good , but they have flaws which we are trying to eradicate at the earliest,” says Sandhu.

There has been some kind of gloom in the Indian boxing camp as the Indian boxers floundered in the first qualifying round for the Sydney Olympic at the recently concluded meet in Tashkant. The Indian boxers, particularly Rana, boxed valiantly but lost on points. Dingko Singh stayed back in India to train still harder and missed the Tashkant meet.

The next qualifying round for the Sydney Olympics is in Seoul in the last week of January 2000. A few Indian boxers are sure to qualify for the Olympics. Beaten and battered at Tashkant, they are as determined — as any boxer in the world — to turn the tables on their opponents in Seoul, and that augurs well for the Indian boxing team. The Indian national boxing coaches, along with the Cuban boxing expert are working very, very hard on the selected Indian boxers to boost their psychology, remove their flaws and help them to attain peak close to the Sydney Olympics. The Indian boxers are hurt, having lost in Tashkant and they are geared to fight with vengeance in Seoul.

The Indian boxers will get, after Seoul, one more qualifying round for the Sydney Olympics in June 2000 at Bangkok. In a nutshell, a couple of Indian boxers will, hopefully, qualify for the Sydney Olympics, and that itself will be the success story of Indian boxing which today looks pretty potent unlike in the past.

To conclude, Dingko Singh will be India’s best bet in the Sydney Olympics, and if he gets a favourable draw, he may stun the boxing world.

Will he reign supreme, as he did in the Bangkok Asiad, in Sydney Olympics in the bantamweight (54 kg) category? No one knows for sure, not even the soothsayer.

Highest-ever partnerships
By S. Pervez Qaiser

Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid added 331 runs for the second-wicket partnership in the second one-day international match against New Zealand at Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium, Hyderabad, on November 8, 1999, which is the highest ever partnership in one-day internationals.

Tendulkar and Dravid have set many other records during their partnership. They surpassed India’s highest ever partnership for the second wicket against New Zealand in one-day internationals at 128. Mohammed Azharuddin and Sachin Tendulkar held the previous record for the best second wicket partnership against New Zealand as they both put on 127 runs for the second wicket at Dunedin on March 12,1992.

Sachin and Dravid set up a new record of highest ever partnership for India against New Zealand by reaching 159. Navjot Singh Sidhu and Mohinder Amarnath, who added 158 runs for the third wicket at Sharjah on March 27, 1986, held the previous record of highest ever partnership for India against the Kiwis.

By adding 176 runs, this pair surpassed India’s highest ever partnership for the second wicket on Indian soil. Ravi Shastri and Sanjay Manjrekar held the previous record. Shastri and Manjrekar added 175 runs for the second wicket against South Africa at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, New Delhi, on November 14,1991.

At 220, Sachin and Dravid surpassed the record of highest ever partnership for the second wicket on Indian soil. Mark Waugh and Ricky Ponting held the previous record of highest partnership for the second wicket on Indian soil. The Australian pair added 219 runs against India at Ferozeshah Kotla ground, Delhi on April 11, 1998.

Sachin and Dravid erased the previous record of highest ever partnership against New Zealand by reaching 264. Inzamam-ul-Haq and Aamir Sohail of Pakistan held the previous record of highest partnership against New Zealand. The Pakistani pair added 263 for the second wicket at Sharjah on April 20,1994.

This Indian pair of Sachin and Dravid surpassed the all-time highest partnership for any wicket on Indian soil when they reached 276.

The countrymen Mohammed Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja who put on 275 runs for the unfinished fourth-wicket partnership against Zimbabwe at Cuttack on April 9, 1998, held the previous record of best ever partnership on Indian soil in limited overs one-day internationals.

Tendulkar and Dravid bettered the record of highest ever second-wicket partnership in one day internationals by adding 319 runs. Saurav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid who put on 318 against Sri Lanka at Taunton on May 26, 1999, in the seventh World Cup held the previous record of highest ever partnership in one day internationals.

Sport Mail
Kudos to Sachin for double ton

Heartiest congratulations to Sachin Tendulkar for scoring a double hundred (217) against New Zealand in the third and final Test at Ahmedabad. The double century had eluded him for a long time and it came exactly after 10 years when he made his debut in Test cricket against Pakistan in October 1989. Considering his remarkable greatness as a batsman, everybody had been wondering why the double century was eluding him.

He had been hitting centuries very frequently. But he could not go on to hit a double hundred even after crossing 150 on three occasions. Now that he has done so, I feel he will be able to do so successfully in future also. Interestingly, when he reached this magic figure, the expression on his face and his body language were just the same as if some other batsman reaches the 100-run mark. He had started reaching the hundred mark so frequently that it had started looking as if hundreds were like fifties to him. Sachin, you are a class apart!

ISAAC DAVID
Jalandhar

Kumble’s feat

Kumble again struck by taking 10 wickets in the second Test at Kanpur, repeating his performance of taking the same number of wickets against Pakistan at Delhi. He has proved to be indispensable for the present. New faces like D Gandhi, Bhardwaj, Ramesh and Prasad are improving. Harbajhan Singh has also displayed his prowess and strength.

Y. L. CHOPRA
Bathinda

DD telecast

The LG Cricket Cup at Nairobi was telecast live on DD-1. But it was an interrupted telecast. The viewers of DD-1 were asked to switch over to DD-2 when there was some special programme. I installed my TV set in 1987. In fact residents of my village do not really know what this DD-2 is and why this channel is meant only for metropolitan cities. Why don’t the DD authorities realise the feelings of other viewers in other parts of the country? The DD-2 facilities should be made available throughout the country.

HEM RAJ SHARMA
Hamirpur

Kapil’s appointment

Kudos to the BCCI for selecting Kapil Dev as coach of the Indian team. This step brought relief to millions of cricket fans after the not-so-good showing of the team. With Kapil Dev as coach, there will be change in the approach of the Indian team knowing very well the type of cricketer Kapil Dev was during his tenure. Complacency has no place in Kapil’s dictionary.

SUMAN SALHOTRA
Kapurthala

Ceat cricketer

Congratulations to Rahul Dravid for winning the Ceat international ‘cricketer of the World Cup’ and international cricketer of the year awards. It is a great honour for him. During the World Cup he scored 461 runs with the help of two centuries and three half centuries which is not an easy task. Stylish Rahul Dravid played brilliantly during the World Cup. He scored an unbeaten 104 runs in just 108 balls against Kenya in the third league match of the World Cup and raised 237 runs for the third wicket partnership with Sachin Tendulkar, which was a new record for any wicket in the World Cup history. Another excellent knock by Rahul Dravid was against Sri Lanka in the World Cup.

SUNIL DOGRA
Chandigarh