below-strength Indian  team completed a dismal South African tour, losing the 5 test series 0-3. Note that South Africa was a team that could not even qualify for the Utrecht World Cup. The last time India met South Africa was during the Commonwealth Games, where a full-strength Indian team beat South Africa 2-1. Gill stands exposed in his arrogant claim that India can do without the services of the Asiad Six.

M. K. Kaushik has criticized Gill for continuing to omit the Super Six, and inducting players far inferior to them in the name of youth.

''In my opinion, Pillay, Varkey, Mukesh Kumar and Ballal were the best in Bangkok. Even in last month's Muruguppa Gold Cup, Dhanraj Pillai was declared the Man of the Final, while Mumbai skipper Sabu Varkey was voted the Forward of the Tournament. How can the IHF justify their omission. Can the cricket board afford to drop someone like Sachin Tendulkar without incurring the wrath of the public?"

This is how the South African press hailed the triumph of their team:

India losing to South Africa is tantamount to South Africa losing to Kenya in cricket. For a country like South Africa, ranked outside the world's top ten, to beat a nation ranked sixth or seventh and with a national training squad of 60 players, is solid proof of the team's capabilities.

In a series where South Africa were just hoping to hold their own, South Africa beat a country that considers hockey second only to cricket in terms of importance. The Indian team are starting to rue their decision to leave 5 of their top players at home.

Now back to the hockey series. The Indian team devoid of Asiad stars Dhanraj and Mukesh could score only 5 goals in 5 matches. The Indian team devoid of Asiad stars Ashish Ballal and A. B. Subbaiah conceded 10 goals in 5 matches. Greg Nicol alone scored as many goals as that of the entire Indian team. How can sense be drilled into the stubborn heads of the IHF officials (there were 7 officials on this tour), that the Indian team is a subject of ridicule without the Super Six.

This was India's second tour to South Africa (the earlier one was in 1993). All matches were played at the Randburg Hockey Stadium in Johannesburg. The results were as follows:

Date	Result	Scorers - SA	Scorers - India
Aug 13	South Africa 0 - India 0
Aug 15	South Africa 2 - India 1	Justin King (35) Mike Cullen (51)	Sameer Dad (8)
Aug 17	South Africa 4 - India 1	Greg Nicol (5, 36) Justin King (44) Craig Fulton (53)	L. Prabhakaran (38)
Aug 19	South Africa 2 - India 2	Greg Nicol (30) Craig Fulton (47)	Gagan Ajit Singh (8) Kamal Horo
Aug 21	South Africa 2 - India 1	Greg Nicol (53, 54)	Dinesh Nayak (33)

The team: Goalkeepers: Edward Aloysius, Jude Menezes. Defenders and Halfbacks: Anurag Raghuvanshi, Dinesh Nayak, Lazarus Barla, Mohammed Riaz (captain), Baljit Singh Saini, Thirumal Valavan, Ramandeep Singh. Forwards: Kamal Horo, Deepak Thakur, Harbhajan Singh, L. Prabhakaran, Gagan Ajit Singh, Brojen Singh, Samir Dad.

The officials (total 7 in number): Head of Delegation: D. S. Murthy, IHF Representative: K Jyothikumaran, Manager: J. N. Tyagi, Head Coach: Vasudevan Baskaran, Assistant Coach: Ramesh Parameswaran, Doctor: Shiv Charan Singh, Trainer: Sampath Kumar

ndian juniors took part in an European tour involving test matches against Holland and an 8-nation Junior Challenge (under-21) hockey tournament in the Polish town of Poznan.

Due to bungling by IHF officials, two warmup matches in Holland had to be eliminated from the Indian team's schedule. This is because the visa applications were sent at the last minute to the Netherlands embassy, which refused to issue them until they conducted interviews of some of the players. Consequently, the Polish visas were also delayed, as they were to stamped only after the Dutch gave clearance.

India's scores in the Junior Challenge tournament were as follows:

Pool Matches	Date	Result
	Aug 23	India 8 Egypt 2
	Aug 24	India 4 Belgium 0
	Aug 26	Germany 1 India 0
Knockout	Date	Result
Semi-Final	Aug 28	India 2 Poland 1
Final	Aug 29	South Korea 4 (10) India 4 (9)

In an exciting final, India went up 2-0 ahead early in the first-half, and held on for a 3-2 half-time lead. However, the gritty Koreans tied the score 4-4 at full time. With 15 minutes of extra-time producing no result, tie-breaker was applied.

The two teams remained locked 8-8 (4-4 in tie-break) after a set of five penalty strokes. In the sudden-death, Jong Koo Kim put Korea in the lead (9-8) but Arjun Halappa levelled scores again. The Indian challenge in the nerve-wracking final ended when Bimal Lakra's attempt hit the post after Jong Bok Cha had put the Koreans 10-9 ahead.

This moderately successful European tour has to be kept in perspective. When we played teams that mattered, we lost. For example, we were whipped by Holland (0-5 and 1-6), lost to Germany (0-1) and lost to Korea (9-10 in tie-breaker). The teams we beat were relative minnows - Belgium, Scotland, Poland and Egypt.

sian Games winning coach Maharaj Krishen Kaushik has demanded that K. P. S. Gill quit his post as chairman of the national selection committee, and instead be replaced by a person with technical knowledge to select the players.

Kaushik also accused the IHF of scuttling his chances of being bestowed with the Dronacharya Award for excellence in coaching. Kaushik was among the front-runners for the Dronacharya Award, but was given the Arjuna Award instead.

Kaushik, a part of the 1980 Moscow Olympics gold medal winning squad and a goal-scorer in the final, said he had incurred the wrath of the IHF officialdom for consistently supporting the "senior" players.

"Apart from Bangkok, I have produced a number of women players who are in the national squad, including Pritam Rani besides working with some top men players. I fully deserved the Dronacharya Award," said Kaushik, who was the chief women's national coach before taking over the men's team.

Kaushik also criticised Gill for saying that India will end up with the "wooden spoon" at next year's Sydney Olympics if the senior players were retained. "Nobody can predict the future. Gill is not an astrologer. And he is also not that technical a person to make such comments," he said.

Kaushik pointed out that some of the IHF replacements were actually older than those 'rested'. "They dropped Ballal, who is s still the best goalkeeper of India. Edward Aloysius (who is with the Indian team now in South Africa) is older than Ballal and Jude Menezes (the second goalkeeper there) himself is around 28 years old.

Kaushik did not agree with Gill that IHF had to struggle to raise funds and that the players were unreasonable.

"If money is hard to come by, how does IHF manage to send abroad every time so many officials who know little about the game. Look at those who went for last year's World Cup and Asian Games. How can the IHF justify sending 7 officials with the junior squad now in Europe?"

Kaushik said it was fine to remove players, but officials should also share the responsibility for poor performances.

"When we do poorly, the coach resigns and players are changed. But will Gill, the selection panel chairman, resign if the team does not do well? Selection is yours, blame is mine. How is this fair?" he asked.

Kaushik exhorted the Asiad Six to fight back. "'The Super Six will be called back. IHF will be forced to take them back." And regarding the contentious issue of payments to players, Kaushik had the parting shot.

"The payment to our national hockey players is lower than the telephone bills of IHF." Need we say more.

ormer National Coach Cedric D'Souza has made his debut as a columnist for rediff.com. He gives useful insight into the workings of the IHF, though has to be careful with words, since he is an IHF official himself. By and large, Cedric lets facts, rather than opinion, do the talking. Cedric writes:

Can anyone justify the changing of the coach 9 times since K. P. S. Gill's IHF came to power in July 1994? In Indian hockey, the national coach has never been given the importance he deserves. Coaches are changed, unceremoniously dumped and selected at the drop of a hat. What does this portray? In my opinion, it shows a lack of planning, continuity and depicts a clear case of pushing the panic button.

Coach	Sacked In	Tournaments	Position
Zafar Iqbal	Nov 94	Hiroshima Asian Games	2nd
Cedric D'Souza	Aug 96	Sydney World Cup Atlanta Olympics	5th 8th
V. Bhaskaran	Dec 96	Chennai Champions Trophy	4th
Pargat Singh	Aug 97	Hamburg Panasonic Cup	4th (Last)
V. Bhaskaran	Jun 98	1998 Indo-Pak Series Utrecht World Cup	Lost 3-4 9th
M. K. Kaushik	Dec 98	KL Commonwealth Games Bangkok Asian Games	4th GOLD
V. Bhaskaran	Feb 99	1999 Indo-Pak Series	Lost 3-6
Harcharan Singh	Jun 99	India - Germany Test Series India - Belgium Test Series	Lost 1-3 Won 2-1
V. Bhaskaran	-	1999 African Tour	Lost 0-3

Cedric has the following words for his colleagues, "It is my sincere advice to fellow coaches to take a united stand and fight for a contract, otherwise the prevailing scenario will never change, and you will continue to face the same indignity meted out by the whims and fancies of the IHF."

he best news to come out of hockey in India this year is the launch of an Indian hockey site Indianhockey.com. This site has been conceived by Sundeep Misra, who writes in his rationale for the hockey site:

I feel for hockey. I am passionate about the sport. In the 1940s, when India was looking for an identity in the world of sport, hockey gave us one. As a sport it brought the nation together. Are you willing to forget the 8 Olympic gold medals? Hockey gave us an identity when we needed one. Today it needs one. Do we just walk away? I can't.

The website has sections on Ashok Kumar's Top 10 Indian hockey players, Calendar of Events, News Archives and thought-provoking articles written with lots of feeling. This was a sample of what Sundeep wrote on the occasion of National Sports Day (August 29), the birthday of Hockey Wizard Dhyan Chand.

Not long ago we celebrated the birthday of Donald Bradman, an Australian. Indian sports writers who pride themselves on the thickness of their passports rather than the quality of their writing, wrote words singing praises for Don Bradman. Bradman was indeed the greatest.

And so was Dhyan Chand. But will Australian sports writers ever sit down and write even 500 words in praise of the world’s greatest hockey player ever. No they won’t. Not because they don’t know who Dhyan Chand was, but for them celebration begins at home.

It is high time we realise what nationalism means! What commitment means! Those were the very qualities that Dhyan Chand had. Of course, these words have no meaning in Indian sport, especially among our present day sportsmen and sports officials. Nation comes last. The cash comes first.

We will continue to follow closely the fortunes of indianhockey.com. Good luck to a bold venture.

roadcasting giant ESPN will celebrate its 20th birthday on September 7, 1999. Twenty years ago, ESPN, the total sports network, made its debut in Bristol, Connecticut. From its humble beginnings, ESPN is now part of the Walt Disney empire.

The various ESPN-related television channels include ESPN, ESPN2 (launched in 1993), ESPNEWS, ESPN Classic and ESPN International (Asia gets its feed from this channel). In addition to television, ESPN has diversified into ESPN The Magazine, ESPN Radio, ESPN Zone restaurants, ESPN The Store and ESPN Home Video.

And lets not forget espn.com, the grand daddy of sports websites. Since the 1995 creation of ESPN Sportszone, the ESPN website has outshone all its competition. According to figures published by Media Matrix, espn.com got 4.3 million unique visitors and 66 million page views in June! There are 15,000 different sports items for sale on its online ESPNstore.

In India, ESPN does a great service to Indian sports by showing cricket, American football, American basketball, European soccer, New Zealand rugby and ten pin bowling. All these sports are played in every nook and corner of India.

n the month of September, 3 satellite television networks will telecast live 3 tournaments from 3 continents, all of them in the game of cricket.

Tournament	Title Sponsor	Venue	Network
4-Nation Cup	LG Electronics	Nairobi	Star Sports
3-Nation Challenge	Coca Cola	Singapore	Sony TV
India-WI and Pak-WI	N/A	Toronto	ESPN

Sony TV, not content with the prevailing sports in India, has paid the Sri Lanka Cricket Board Rs. 32.5 crores ($7.75 million) for the rights to international cricket in Lanka for the next year and a half. They have signed on Air Time of South Africa to produce the television pictures. They made their debut with the 3-Nation tournament in Colombo, where India came last.

When was the last time when the 3 networks above telecast a 3-Nation or 4-Nation hockey tournament involving India. How about the India-Pakistan hockey series? How about the Commonwealth Games? How about the Asian Games?

The 4 nations taking part in the LG Cup (cricket) are India, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya. This tournament has been organized by IMG, title-sponsored by LG Electronics and being telecast by Star Sports and Doordarshan.

In the same time period, Indian hockey teams (A and B) would have played test matches against the same 3 countries - South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya. The tour had no sports marketing group backing it, no title sponsor, and was not shown live or tape-delayed in India. Welcome to the world of Indian sports.

his is a story of a dispute between a sports federation and its star players. The game is golf, the federation is the Professional Golf Association (PGA) of America, and the protagonists involved are among the richest sportsmen on the planet (Tiger Woods, David Duvall, Mark O'Meara and Payne Stewart).

The tournament at the core of the dispute is the Ryder Cup - the biannual match play tournament in golf between Europe and America. The 1999 edition of the Ryder Cup will be held from September 24-26 at The Country Club in Brookline, Massacheusetts.

This year's tournament would generate $63 million in gross revenue and $23 million in profit. NBC is paying $15 million for the television rights. Until now, the players were participating almost for free (just $5000 stipend money), with the federations (PGA of America and PGA European Tour) pocketing the profits.

The golf superstars hinted that they would boycott the tournament if they don't get paid. The federation met with 16 top players and arrived at a compromise where the Ryder Cup team members would each get a designated amount (in the range of half a million dollars) which they would give to their charity of choice.

What the IHF should learn from this episode is simple - players are more important than the federation officials, and most important, the money the federation makes off the players should rightfully go back to them.

hirty sportspersons were chosen for the 1998 Arjuna Puraskar, the nation's highest sport award. Among the hockey players who won awards were:

Women - Pritam Rani 
Men - Surjit Singh (posthumous), Baljit Singh Dhillon, Mohammed Riaz, Baldev Singh and M. K. Kaushik.

Asian Games gold-medal winning coach Kaushik, who was among the front-runners for the Dronacharya Puraskar but was given the Arjuna Puraskar instead. Kaushik was the chief women's national coach before taking over the men's team.

The Arjuna awards carry a cash prize of Rs. 50,000 ($1162.70), apart from a statuette and a scroll.

he FIH will honour the world's best male and female hockey players through the newly instituted FIH International Player of the Year awards. The first of these awards will be presented in October in Alexandria, Egypt, during the FIH's 75th Anniversary Celebrations. Specially commissioned trophies, depicting a male and a female hockey player in action, are currently being designed.

Calls for nominations have gone to all FIH National Associations, with the deadline for replies being 31st August. Nominees will be evaluated by a selection panel that will include FIH coaches and umpires, members of the media and members of the FIH Athletes' Panel.

The nominated athletes will be evaluated based on a number of criteria, including:

• Skill and technique
• Impact on team's performance
• Tournaments/titles/honours won
• Personality/Charisma – qualities as an ambassador for hockey
• Disciplinary record
• Involvement in hockey off the field of play
• Achievements during the 1998 calendar year will be considered.

How about some transparency in who the IHF nominated from India. It can be sure that none of the Asiad Six would be the nominee. After all, what did they achieve, except for winning India the Asian Games gold medal after 32 long years.

innipeg, Canada, hosted the XIIIth Pan American Games from July 23 - August 8, 1999. 5,000 athletes from 42 nations from North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean competed in 41 different sports. The Pan American games served as a qualifying event for next year's Sydney Olympics hockey competition.

Canada in the men's section and Argentina in the women's section, won their respective hockey titles to book their tickets to Sydney. Canada beat Argentina 1-0 through a goal by Toronto's Ken Perreira to get their automatic berth for the Olympics.  The tables had turned from what it was 4 years ago, when Argentina defeated Canada 1-0 at the Pan Am Games in Mar del Plata to secure the automatic berth to the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

Argentina got some consolation when their ladies team beat USA 5-2 to earn both the gold medal and an Olympic berth for the fourth straight time. Argentina joins host Australia and Asian Games champion South Korea as the teams that have clinched berths thus far in the Sydney Olympics.

The European Nations Cup (women) was held from August 18 - August 29 in Cologne, Germany. The prize for victory here was acceptance for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, avoiding the qualifying tournament at Milton Keynes.

The Dutch women won the European championship on Cologne and in so doing secured a ticket to the Sydney Games. The team of coach Tom van 't Hek beat the the hosts Germany 2 - 1 in the final. Holland has won all European Cups held so far, except in 1991 when they lost to England.

ritam Rani Siwach captained a 16-member Indian women's hockey team against New Zealand on a 11-day tour. New Zealand is ranked 5th in the world (having finished 5th out of 6 teams at the 1998 Champions Trophy in Brisbane). India is ranked 12th in the world, having finished 12th and last in the 1998 Women's World Cup in Utrecht.

India met New Zealand twice in 1998 and lost both times. New Zealand beat India 2-1 in the Utrecht World Cup. 4 months later, in the Commonwealth Games bronze medal play-off, New Zealand stormed to a 3-0 victory, thanks to goals from captain Anna Lawrence, Tina Bell-Kake and Lisa Walton. That win gave New Zealand its first major Championship medal (either men or women) since the men’s Olympic Gold Medal in 1976.

In the runup to the Test Series, India played 3 friendly matches - beat the New Zealand Maori 5-3, drew with New Zealand Academy 1-1, and won their second match against the Academy 2-1.

The results of the tests were as follows:

Date	Venue	Result	Scorers - NZ	Scorers - India
Aug 26	Wellington	New Zealand 5 - India 1	Suzie Pierce (2) Kylie Foy (2) Kate Trolove	Jyoti Sunita Kallu
Aug 28	Levin	New Zealand 2 - India 0	Mandy Smith (2)
Aug 29	Wellington	India 5 New Zealand 0	Sita Gussain (3) Pritam Rani Siwach Mary Stella Tirkey

The New Zealand team's title sponsor was Philips LadyShave (their counterparts in Australia are sponsored by Telstra). The Indian team was without any sponsor.

Next up for the Indian women is the fourth Asia Cup (December 1 to 10) and the 12-team Olympic qualifying tournament at Milton Keynes, England (March 23 to April 2 next year).

The team: Tingongleima Chanu, Helen Mary, Mary Stella Tirkey, Sandeep Kaur, Amandeep Kaur, Sunita Dalal, Suraj Lata Devi, Sita Gussain, Sumrai Tete, Pritam Rani Siwach, Jyoti Sunita Kullu, Manjinder Kaur, Fardina Ekka (all Railways), Shaina Kispotta, Pakpi Devi (Bombay) and Kiran Bala (Haryana)

The officials: Chief Coach: G. S. Bhangu, Manager: Rupa Saini, Doctor: Ashok Ahuja

angalore`s hockey fraternity was treated to a piece of nostalgia on the National Sports Day (August 29) at the KSHA Stadium. The festivities were jointly organised by the KSHA and Sports Authority of India, Southern Centre

The day commemorating the legendary Dhyan Chand's birth anniversary witnessed matches involving a host of former Olympians and internationals, including the Asian Games gold medal winners. Led by the son of Dhyan Chand, Ashok Kumar, the Olympians XI played a Combined Bangalore School XI. In another match, the Asian Games medal winners took on the Centre of Excellence XI.

While the veteran Olympians had to fight back to draw 2-2, the highly talented SAI boys put it across the Bangkok heroes 2-1.

The day also saw the Asian Games champions being presented a cheque of Rs. 1 lakh each by G. R. Itigi, managing director of U&I Scotty computers. Cheques of Rs. 20,000 each were given by Namdhari Seeds.

Meanwhile, on the initiative of coach M. K. Kaushik, members of the victorious Asian Games team have decided to hand over Rs. 2 lakh to former World Cupper and Services player Gopal Bhengra, who is in distress.

xed Asian Games national hockey captain Dhanraj Pillay will lead a star-studded 16-member Maharashtra Olympic Association (MOA) team on a tour to the Netherlands and Germany next month to take part in two club tournaments and in the Hague Hockeydays event.

Among the 40 probables shortlisted for the tour are three other Bangkok Asian Games gold medal winning members - Anil Aldrin, Sandeep Somesh and Sabu Varkey. The squad, to be accompanied by Mir Ranjan Negi and Mukul Pandey as coaches, will tour Europe between September 7 and 22.

In Phase I of the tour, the team will play matches with Dutch first division teams containing internationals on September 8 and 9 at Arnhem and Utrecht.

The team then travels to Germany to play matches against the country's champion club Red and White in Cologne and against Bad Kraeuznacht at Bad Kraeuznacht, 70 kms from Cologne.

The third phase of the tour would be the $10,000 prize money Hague Hockeydays to be held from September 15-20. Participants in the tournament will be top club teams from Netherlands, Germany and England.

The tour, budgeted to cost Rs. 20 lakhs, had been organized by Mumbai-based Apeksha Cultural Organisation and Sports Association (ACOSA). The tour has been made possible by the assistance of the state government and the Maharashtra Olympic Association.

he most outstanding player to come out of Asia in the last couple of years is undoubtedly Pakistan's ace penalty corner expert Sohail Abbas. The 23-year-Karachi-born has so far played 43 matches for Pakistan, scoring 62 goals.

Sohail made his debut for Pakistan in 1998 and scored 26 goals. In the 1999 calendar year, with four more months still to go, Sohail has already scored 36 goals, surpassing Kamran Ashraf's record of 35 goals in a single calendar year (1994).

Sohail Abbas scored 4 hat-tricks in Pakistan's recent European tour, including one each against Holland and Germany, and two against Switzerland. Sohail scored 18 goals - 10 in Holland and 8 in Switzerland, contributing more than 50 percent of Pakistan's 31 goals in the two tournaments. Sohail emerged as the highest scorer in both the tournaments.

Watching his rare talent and potential in conversion of penalty corners, Sohail has been contacted by a number of professional clubs in Holland besides a few Swiss clubs to play for them. As of present, he is still on a contract job with Habib Bank, getting Rs. 9000 (US$ 173) a month.

echelle Hawkes has become the most capped Australian international, having passed the 250 mark during the recent World Invitational at Milton Keynes, England. 32-year old Rachelle, who made her debut in 1985, has the following career record:

Event	Team Position
Olympics	1988 - Seoul (gold) 1992 - Barcelona (5th) 1996 - Atlanta (gold)
World Cup	1994 (gold) 1998 - Utrecht (gold)
Champions Trophy	1991 (gold) 1993 (gold) 1995 (gold) 1997 (gold) 1999 (gold)
Commonwealth Games	1998 - Kuala Lumpur (gold)

In the same World Invitational event, Malaysia's Maninderjit Singh Sidhu, made his 150th appearance for his country. Sidhu became 15,000 ringetts (pounds 2,500) richer thanks to the Malaysian government's tradition of rewarding their athletes when they make 150 international appearances.

Also in August, Wouter van Pelt earned his 200th international cap for Holland in their match against Italy. Holland won 15-1.

his is Part II of our focus on the National Hockey League of Australia, namely the Fox Sports Cup (men) and the Telstra Series (women). The 7-team Telstra Series got over on July 18.

The first leg of the 9-team National Hockey League for the Fox Sports Cup was held from July 2 to August 8. After 12 home-and-away matches, spaced over 6 weeks, 4 teams qualified for the Finals Series - Perth Thundersticks, Queensland Blades, Melbourne Redbacks and the NSW Strongbow Warriors.

The scores in the Finals Series, played at the Perth Hockey Stadium, were as follows:

Stage	Results
Semi-Finals	Perth beat New South Wales 5-2 Queensland beat Melbourne 4-3
Finals	Melbourne beat New South Wales 7-1 (3rd-4th) Perth beat Queensland 3-1 (1st-2nd)

The point to note: the title sponsor of the National Hockey League is the television network Fox Sports. This network is part of Rupert Murdoch's empire, and includes Star Sports (Asia) and Fox Sports (Australia and USA). The problem of television coverage is solved since title sponsor Fox Sports telecast live the Consolation Final and the Final.

If Australia, with such a small hockey playing base, and such small television audiences can sucessfully plan the National Hockey League, why can't the IHF plan and implement a similar hockey league in India.

Another important point - after the completion of the Finals weekend, national selectors named the new Australian senior, development and youth teams. The advantages of this well-defined and transparent selection process are obvious - there is ONE nationwide selection framework, spread over a SEASON, shown on TELEVISION, that selectors from across the country can choose from.

This totally eliminates the ad hoc nature of team selection in India, where the players are either chosen from a one-time tournament, or based on the whims and fancies of IHF's head honcho Gill and his coterie of yes-men.

One final note, Australia has 1 national coach (Terry Walsh) for the past 6 years. Germany has had 1 national coach (Paul Lissek) for more than 6 years. In contrast, India had 9 coaches over the past 5 years. Also, the coach selects the team in Australia and Germany, while Gill selects the team in India.

sports fan from France who is collecting statistics on the greatest sportsment of the century is this edition's Visitor of the Month. Tissier Jean-Jacques writes:

For completing my statistics on the greatest sportsmen of the century, could you please give me the following information

List of Indians who won the scoring title in the Olympics, World Cup and Asian Games tournaments.

Number of matches and goals scored by : Richard Allen, Leslie Walter Claudius, Keshava Dutt, Major Dhyand Chand, Ranganandhan Francis, Leslie Charles Hammond, Syed Mohammed Jaffar, Amir Kumar, Ashok Kumar, Kishan Lal, Raghbir Lal, Shankar Laxman, Govind Perumal, Victor John Peter, Broome Eric Pinniger, Ajitpal Singh, Balbir Dosanjh Singh, Dharam Singh, Grahanandan Singh, Kunwar Digvijay Singh, Prithipal Singh, Roop Singh, Randir Singh Gentle, Udham Kullar Singh, Carlyle Carrol Tapsell.

Waiting for your answer, with my best regards

akistan is supposed to take part in the 6-nation Lal Bahadur Shastri Tournament in India from October 16 to 23 involving some of the top teams of the hockey world. However, the hockey team's scheduled tour of India is in jeopardy because of the escalating tension between the two neighbouring nations.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry may not give the go-ahead to the national team to play in India as there seems little chances of the two countries making peace with each other in the near future.

If Pakistan decide to stay away from the Indian tournament, there are fears that their arch-rivals, as a counter move, may skip this year's Asia Cup to be hosted by Pakistan in November.