The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Sharpshooter

Nineteen-year-old Amanpreet Singh, who clinched a bronze medal at the World Shooting Championship recently, has the potential to make a mark at the Olympics, writes Rubinder Gill

The 49th ISSF World Shooting Championship at Zagreb proved to be a happy hunting ground for several Indian shooters — senior as well as juniors.

Quite a few Indians emerged through the tough field to climb the podium. Nineteen-year-old Amanpreet Singh, along with Zakir Khan and Bapu Banjare shot the bronze in the 10m air pistol event.

Amanpreet practises about four hours everyday but not with regular ammunition. He makes do with pellets at the Punjab Police shooting range at Phillaur. Having a former national-level shooter father has at least taken care of learning the basics of sport. His shooting pistol is a world-class Swiss Morini-162 EI. Having the requisite ammunition to shoot with it would go a long way in making the boy a better marksman.

A BA-II student of Lyallpur Khalsa College, Jalandhar, Amanpreet took to the sport like a duck to water. His father, Sewak Singh, a Sub-Inspector with the Punjab Police, had hit the bull’s-eye at the All-India Police Duty Meet. Amanpreet took over the mantle and within six years of taking up the sport, he has well surpassed his father. Hungarian coach Csaba has given him a few helpful tips.

Shortage of funds is the main problem the youngster is facing. His college has taken the initiative and lent a helping hand. Indian Airlines supports his “transport charges” but he still had to pay the tax on the ticket. So much for sponsorship!

For a shooter, a relaxed mind is a prerequisite for a good performance. Amanpreet sometimes meditates to relax but other than that he doesn’t do any exercise for better concentration. He admits that a momentary lapse of concentration has cost him a medal a few times.

Amanpreet started his international career with a golden double at the first International Juniors’ Competition at Suhl, Germany, last year. He won the individual as well as the team event. He followed it up with another double at the 15th Meeting of the Shooting Hopes in the Czech Republic. He shot below par but still managed to top the field.

Then followed the trials for the first Airgun Asian Shooting Championship last year. The tough competition brought out his fighting spirit, as he achieved his personal best of 582 points. He returned with two gold medals from Bangkok.

This year the golden glow has diminished. At the Suhl meet this year, he could win only an individual silver and team bronze. The Czech Republic competition provided an individual gold and a team silver.

The 49th ISSF World Shooting Championship was the sixth international competition for him. It was also the toughest test Amanpreet had faced. He helped the team bag the bronze and finished sixth in the individual event.

It is this medal that gives him the most satisfaction.

“The competition was world class. Best shooters from 97 countries were taking part. None of the earlier competitions that I had taken part in were this tough.”

Chinese shooters took the gold in the event, followed by South Korea. “Chinese shooters were very impressive. I watched them closely, they had so much patience, dedication and were single-minded in their pursuit of a medal.”

With a score of 575, the team missed silver by a point. At this level, a point separates the winners from losers. Amanpreet is learning it the hard way but quickly.

With all the medals, most will be looking forward to the Beijing Olympics in 2008 but the hosts are going to be the toughest to dislodge from the top spot.

As as far as India’s junior shooters are concerned, the national federation and corporate houses should do more to ensure that they have a smoother transition to the senior level. If groomed properly, shooters like Amanpreet can do India proud over the next five years or so.

Return of the beard
Vikramdeep Johal

Hashim Amla
Hashim Amla

The good old beard is back in cricket with a bang. Dean Jones lost his job by calling devout Muslim Hashim Amla a “terrorist”, while several England fans sported fake beards during the Leeds Test to show their admiration for Monty Panesar. Not long ago, Harbhajan Singh was labelled a “patit” Sikh by the SGPC as he trimmed his beard.

In the post-9/11 world, the beard has become a prominent religious symbol. Pakistan’s Mohammad Yousuf grew one soon after his conversion from Christianity to Islam to underline his devotion for his new faith. Earlier, his former team-mates Saeed Anwar and Saqlain Mushtaq had also undergone such a facial metamorphosis.

There was a time long, long ago when the beard epitomised Victorian splendour. W.G. Grace, the colossus of English cricket, was as popular for his brilliant game as for his long, bushy beard. Back in the 1890s, Australian speedster Ernest Jones once delivered a ball that went through Grace’s beard. The latter, not at all pleased, asked him, “What do you think you’re at, Jonah?” The apology was prompt: “Sorry, Doctor, she slipped.” One wonders what the burly Grace would have done to the other Jones (Dean) had the Aussie called him a terrorist.

W.G. Grace
W.G. Grace

In Grace’s days, there were other bearded cricketers too, such as England’s Alfred Shaw and Australia’s Harry Boyle and George Bonner.

The beard virtually disappeared from cricket with the death of Grace in 1915. It resurfaced in the 1960s with the emergence of two of India’s finest spinners — Bishan Singh Bedi and Bhagwat Chandrasekhar. However, it was in the next two decades when unshaven, rugged looks became trendy. Several top cricketers grew a beard for a while not because of their religion but to make a style statement.

Greg Chappell

England had Ian Botham, Mike Brearley and Mike Gatting, while for Australia there were Greg Chappell and Allan Border. The West Indian “beard brigade” included Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Malcolm Marshall and Vivian Richards. Pakistan had Wasim Raja and Zaheer Abbas, while the Indian representative was Chetan Sharma (Sikhs Maninder Singh, Balwinder Sandhu and Navjot Sidhu kept a beard for obvious reasons).

In the 1990s, the clean-shaven “Gillette looks” became predominant. Pacers Courtney Walsh and Curtley Ambrose, however, occasionally preferred to have a short beard. Among today’s Caribbean bowlers, Corey Collymore has kept the “tradition” alive.

In contemporary cricket, the beard is here to stay. Any player or commentator who makes a remark about it would do so at his own peril.

Roller coaster
G. S. Paul

When he puts on his roller skates, there’s no stopping 16-year-old Gursagar Singh Jassar. The Chandigarh boy won three gold medals at the National Roller Skating Championship in January this year, thus becoming the first skater from North India to achieve this feat. The meet was conducted by the Roller Skating Federation of India at Kolkata. He emerged the winner in inline skating (under-16 years) in three events — 5 km road race, 10 km point-to-point race and 15 km elimination race.

Gursagar, a plus-two student of DAV Public School, Sector 8, Chandigarh, represented India at the 2005 World Speed Skating (Inline) Championship in China, where he took part in seven events and competed against top-ranked skaters from Italy, USA and Korea.

“It was a good learning experience. I was among the few Indian players who could complete the marathon race of about 43 km,” says Gursagar.

He won three medals, including one gold medal in the sub-junior section at the 39th National Roller Skating Championship held at Visakhapatnam in 2002. He also bagged one gold and two bronze medals at the 46th National School Games held at Panchkula in 2000.

Last year, he won a silver medal at the 41st National Roller Skating Championship in Andhra Pradesh. This year, he bagged a silver medal at the national meet in Faridabad. For the quads event, his coach is Sarabjit “Shammi”, while for inline skating, he is being trained by J.S. Dhaliwal, general secretary, District Roller Skating Association, Ludhiana.

Gursagar might be going great guns in his sport, but he laments the fact that it has not yet been recognised by the Chandigarh Administration.

“Speed skating is looked down upon as a recreational sport. It requires great amount of stamina, speed and skill. There are bank tracks and gradation status for this sport in Punjab, Haryana and even J&K. The Chandigarh Sports Department, with the help of the Municipal Corporation, should develop flat speed tracks in the city,” says Gursagar.

Team dream

Indian probables for the hockey World Cup will get the last chance to impress the selectors during the Independence Cup, which begins in Chennai today. The Indian team for the World Cup, to be held from September 6 to 17 in Monchengladbach, Germany, will be picked on the basis of the probables’ performance in this tournament.

The Independence Cup will feature four teams — World Cup probables, South Asian Federation Games probables (development team), the Indian under-18 side and the Tamil Nadu state team. The team for the SAF Games, be held in Colombo, Sri Lanka, from August 18 to 27, will also be announced after the conclusion of the Chennai tournament. Members of the selection committee, headed by Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) President KPS Gill, will be present to witness the probables in action.

The Indian seniors recently took part in a physical conditioning camp in Bangalore, followed by a 10-day training-cum-practice camp in Hyderabad.

The IHF has also proposed to hold clinics for coaches and umpires during the Independence Cup. Kuku Walia of the FIH Committee for Umpires will hold the clinic, while Western Australian physical trainer Derick Knox, who joined the physical conditioning camp in Bangalore for the seniors, and development team trainer Ravi Kanakmetala would address the coaches.

Meanwhile, SP Dass Bable, joint secretary of the IHF, has been appointed manager of the Indian team for the World Cup.

Dass had earlier accompanied the team to the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Malaysia and the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. — PTI

IN THE NEWS
Spin king
Ramandeep Singh

Going by the rate at which Muralitharan is taking wickets, he is likely to replace Shane Warne at the top sooner than later. — AFP photo

Muttiah Muralitharan, one of the most successful bowlers of all time, is the quintessential match-winner for the Sri Lankans. Perhaps no other contemporary bowler has been relied upon so much by his team to deliver time and again, at home or away.

Murali’s extraordinary career has been dogged by allegations that he bends his bowling arm while delivering the ball. The ICC has cleared his action and scientifically also it has been proven that his bent arm is a birth defect. However, the controversy refuses to die down, with Martin Crowe again stoking the fire recently by indirectly referring to the lenient attitude adopted by the authorities towards chuckers. Murali has even been unkindly called a “javelin thrower” by one of his detractors.

But the ever-smiling Tamilian, the only one in the Lankan team, has carried on with mindboggling performances in match after match to astound his fans and silence his critics. He is in superlative form these days, winning the man-of-the-series award for his 22-wicket haul in the two-Test series against South Africa. Murali has taken his wicket tally to 657 and is fast approaching Shane Warne, who has 685 wickets.

Since his debut in 1993, Murali has delivered the goods for his country and has featured prominently in virtually every Test win recorded by Sri Lanka. He alone has shouldered the burden of bowling the maximum number of overs in a match without any respite. For going through this grind, his shoulder has suffered and he was sidelined after a shoulder surgery at the end of 2004.

Australia has been unkind to him, with the crowds heckling him whenever he has toured there. He has been no- bowled twice there and once the “Murali bashing” became so intolerable for the Lankans that the then skipper Arjuna Ranatunga staged a walkout with the team. Australians have a reason to hate Murali. Sri Lanka beat Australia in the 1996 World Cup final, played at Lahore, and Murali was one of the chief architects of that victory.

To say that Sri Lanka are heavily dependent on Murali would be an understatement. Australia have Shane Warne, Brett Lee and Glenn McGrath, while England have Steve Harmison, Andrew Flintoff and Matthew Hoggard. Similarly, other teams have two or three frontline bowlers who can be depended upon to carry the day. But Sri Lanka have by and large only one strike bowler, with Chaminda Vaas, as good as he may be, and other medium pacers playing the supporting role and taking the shine off the ball as fast as possible for Murali to start his marathon magical spells. Very few batsmen have been able to tackle him because of the variations he bowls. The prodigious spin and bounce he is able to extract from even unhelpful surfaces adds to the batsmen’s woes.

Spinners, due to their gentle bowling style, carry on longer than the quickies and Murali, notwithstanding his injuries, is expected to play for another four or five years. Going by his strike rate, he can reach the 1000-wicket mark in Tests.

Sooner than later, Murali will have the last laugh when he overtakes Warne and ends up as the highest wicket taker. It will be a fitting reply to the unkind Aussie fans who have often treated him unfairly.