Article by Roma Khanna of CNN-IBN

ven as Mumbai bounced back after the blasts, the families of those who died are struggling to come to terms with the loss. One of the victims on that fateful day was a former national level hockey player, Sanford DeSales.

Sanford's mother Marie DeSales is inconsolable. She was on her way to board a flight to Canada when a phone call changed her life forever. Her 40-year-old son and former national hockey player Sanford was killed in the serial bomb blasts that rocked Mumbai on July 11.

"On Monday night they came to leave us at the airport as we were going to Canada. He was teasing me and said that you are lucky as you are going so far. So I told him don't worry as you will also go when your turn comes," Marie DeSales says.

"He was man who never lost his temper. Everybody loved him," his father says.

All that was left of Sanford was a badly mutilated body in the morgue at KEM hospital. But the pain of his loss becomes worse when his family thinks of the treatment they got.

"We did not get any help from the hospital. They would not let us inside and see the patients. We knew that most of the names written there were wrong. Nobody told us that there were two morgues in KEM. It was only at about 1630 hrs IST when some people went inside with photographs that we managed to locate him. He was all alone in the morgue," his brother says, trying hard to control his emotions.

The pain and grief in the DeSales household is all too obvious but his widow Janet is poised when asked what she thinks of those responsible for the blasts.

"Whoever has done this has to be heartless. God has told us to forgive people so I forgive them. God has said that revenge is his so he will take his revenge," she adds.

Sanford's cousin Sunita said, "Not only was he my cousin but more of a brother. These 5 brothers were also my neighbours and I would call them my 5-Man Army. Yes, I too ask the Good Lord to forgive those who did this to him. I really fee very sorry for his dear wife Janet and his daughter Alisha. We do know that Sanford will be watching and protecting them for above. Eternal rest be granted unto him."

Article by V. V. Subrahmanyam, courtesy The Hindu

tung by the indifference of prospective sponsors to his proposed hockey academy project, triple Olympian N. Mukesh Kumar has now decided to make some serious amendments to his idea.

No sponsor has come forward to help with his Academy project, adjacent to the Andhra Pradesh Sports School (Hakimpet). The total project was estimated to cost Rs. 1 crore, but Mukesh was finding it difficult even to raise the Rs. 27.5 lakhs for registration, and the cost of the 5-acre site allotted to him at the rate of Rs. 5 lakhs per acre in March this year.

Now he has come up with an alternative proposal to the State Government, asking it to reallot the same site on lease so that he need not spend a huge amount.

"As things stand, I am not in a position to even start the project in a modest way by constructing a compound wall, and converting the stretch into a hockey ground and a swimming pool," said Mukesh in a chat with The Hindu.

"My original plans were to start the first phase with 16 boys at the earliest. But looking at the lukewarm response from the corporate groups whom I have approached, the plan seems unlikely to take off unless the Government contributes substantially," he explained.

For Mukesh, the main hurdle is that the few corporate groups whom he approached insisted that they would spend initially about Rs. 15 lakhs, but were looking for 'instant' mileage, similar to what they get from cricket and tennis. "Such mileage is impossible to achieve for the next one year," said Mukesh.

One of the other alternatives Mukesh is working on is to have an indoor hockey facility to lure the nearby school students and train in all-weather conditions, and raise funds to take care of the maintenance.

"I am terribly disappointed and my early enthusiasm has diminished to a large extent," he said.

The fact that Mukesh is even contemplating taking up playing golf in the IRISET Golf Course may well reflect his dejection at not being able to make a good start to his much-publicised project.

itness has been a perennial problem for the Indian hockey team. With the upcoming World Cup looming large, the IHF has finally decided to shape up. And the first step in that direction has been the appointment of Derek Cameron Knox from Australia as the physical trainer of the Indian hockey team.

Talks with 34-year-old Knox, a former National junior-level player, had been going on since the Melbourne Commonwealth Games in March of this year.

"The Indian federation approached me to help the team," Knox told the Hindustan Times from Bangalore. "I was always interested in coming to India, and believe they have always been a world-class team but somewhere in between, lacked fitness," he said.

At the very outset, he rubbishes the theory that Indians are genetically weaker to the other teams. "That is the belief of some people, I don't think so."

Knox, who was trainer of the Australian u-21 hockey team from 1996-2003, and worked specifically with the goalkeepers, has evolved a special regimen for the Indian keepers as well. Besides the usual workouts, they have also started practicing boxing - to shore up their reflexes. He is a specialist in the area of developing strength, power and endurance.

And his techniques seems to be working, as vouched for by the team. "He is very good, both as a trainer but more importantly as a motivator. He makes sure that whatever we do, we enjoy it and don't consider it a burden," said a member of the Indian squad.

Knox has just completed his MBA, and he admits that that has been a great help. "I guess my study of organisational behaviour has helped me understand the team better. Specially considering the fact that here, players come from various backgrounds and strata of society," he said.

Though he refused to point out exactly what the Indian team lacks at the moment, he did say there was scope for improvement. And that he is developing the players with an eye on long-term benefits.

"Obviously, there is a little difference between world number one Australia and India. But then, Indian players have qualities that the Aussies do not. And I am hopeful that, in the next 2-3 years, India can be as high as world number two. If I can play any role in developing the team towards that, I would consider that a success."

Knox may be around only till the World Cup so far, but if everything goes fine, he may well stay for a longer term, according to both him and IHF secretary K. Jyothikumaran.

The IHF already has an Australia-based, New Zealand citizen of Indian origin, Ravi Kanakamadala, as a physiotherapist since November 2005.

IHF secretary Jothikumaran lavished praise on Knox and assured the players that fitness worries will now be a thing of the past. Speaking to The Times of India, the IHF secretary said that Knox has introduced several novel methods which will help the Indians match the agile Australians and the physically superior Europeans.

"Knox is a great addition to the Indian team. He has a specific plan for each player. Our coach and players are very happy with his work. He knows what our players lack. Hopefully, we will have a fully fit team before the World Cup," Jyothikumaran said.

4-test SPAR Challenge series was held between the Indian and South African women's team at the University of Stellenbosch Hockey Stadium near Cape Town from July 25 to July 29. This was the first time that the two countries were playing against each other in a women's test series.

Both India (ranked 13) and South Africa (ranked 11) competed at the Commonwealth Games in March 2006 (they drew 2-2 in their league match) and both teams were using this 4-test series to prepare for the World Cup in Spain in September.

The Indian women disappointed by failing to win a single match in South Africa. The match results were as follows:

Date	Result	Goal Scorers - India
Jul 25	South Africa 2 - India 1	Deepika Thakur (21 m)
Jul 26	South Africa 2 - India 1	Jyoti Sunita Kullu (25 m), PC
Jul 28	India 1 - South Africa 1	Suman Bala (35 m), PC
Jul 29	South Africa 1 - India 0

The Player of the Series was Tarryn Bright, while the Top Goal Scorer was Marsha Marescia, both of South Africa.

Indian coach M. K. Kaushik praised the South Africans, stating: "South Africa are a very good team. Their goalkeeping was excellent and their first time passing was very good."

The Indian team for the 4-test series was as follows:

Goalkeeper: Helen Mary, Deepika Murty

Full-backs: Kaanti Baa, Suman Bala, Vineeta Toppo, Pushpa Pradhan

Midfielders: Subhadra Pradhan, Th. Ranjita, Nilima Kujur, Deepika Thakur, Manju

Forwards: Saba Anjum, Sarita Lakra, Sanggai Ibemhal Chanu, Jyoti Sunita Kullu (captain), Poonam Singh

Officials: Chief Coach - Maharaj Krishan Kaushik; Goalkeeping Coach - A. B. Subbaiah

The City Limouzines Indian Junior Women's Hockey Team
with S. M. Masood, Managing Director of City Limouzines

he 3rd Singapore International Hockey Challenge 4-nation tournament for women was held at the Delta Stadium in Singapore from August 3 to August 6. The participating countries were host Singapore, defending champion India, Malaysia and Japan.

The Indian team, which was captained by goalkeeper Marita Tirkey, trained for about a fortnight at Bhopal under coach Gurdayal Singh Bhangu. 7 members of the Indian team for the Singapore Challenge - Poonam Toppo, Ritu Rani, Joydeep Kaur, Harmanjeet Kaur, Harpreet Kaur, Vineeta Xess and one more - were part of the team that won the 4-nation tournament in Gifu (Japan) held last month.

The Indian women failed to defend their title, coming a poor 3rd in the tournament, with the following match results:

Date	Result	Goal Scorers - India
Aug 4	India 1 - Malaysia 1	Joydeep Kaur (11 m), PC
Aug 5	India 6 - Singapore 0	Ritu Rani (7, 49, 55 m) Vineeta Xess (11, 32, 58 m)
Aug 6	Japan 5 - India 2

The Indian team for the 4-nation tournament in Singapore was as follows:

Players: Marita Tirkey, Poonam Toppo, Ranjita Barla, Anjana Barla, Sarita Hanuman, Ritu Rani, Sushma Kiran Minz, Reena Kanti Ekka, Eti Srivastava, Rijuta Mullick, Manjari, Harmanjeet Kaur, Kirandeep Kaur, Harpreet Kaur, Vineeta Xess, Th. Chanchan Devi, Joydeep Kaur

Officials: Chief Coach - Gurdayal Singh Bhangu, Assistant Coach - Smt. Anurita Saini, Umpire - Ms. Sunita Pant

4-nation junior (u-18) tournament was held in Gifu (Japan) from July 12 to July 16. The participating countries were host Japan, India, South Korea and Malaysia.

The Indian u-18 juniors triumphed in their very first international outing, with the following match results:

Date	Result	Goal Scorers - India
Jul 13	India 1 - South Korea 0	Vineeta Xess (PC)
Jul 18	India 5 - Malaysia 0	Ritu Rani (2) Manorama Asem Anuradha Devi Vineeta Xess
Jul 18	Japan 2 - India 0
Jul 18	India 1 - Japan 0 (Sudden Death)	Harpreet Kaur

In the tournament final between India and Japan, the score was 0-0 at the end of full-time. At the end of the first half of extra-time, India got a penalty corner, which in turn led to another penalty corner. Centre-half Harpreet converted it into a golden goal.

India scored 4 of its 7 goals in the tournament through penalty corners

The team was captained by Ritu Rani, a 11th standard student of Shri Guru Nanak Pritam Girls Senior Secondary School, Shahbad.

The Indian team for the 4-nation tournament in Gifu was as follows:

Goalkeeper: Poonam Toppo

Full-backs: Joydeep Kaur, Harmanjeet Kaur

Midfielders: Rosalind Ralte, Harpreet Kaur, Manorama Asem, Amubi Devi

Forwards: Ritu Rani (captain), Anuradha Devi, Vineeta Xess

Officials: Chief Coach - Gurdayal Singh Bhangu

he 3rd Singapore International Hockey Challenge 4-nation tournament for men was held at the Delta Stadium in Singapore from August 3 to August 6. The participating countries were host Singapore, India, Malaysia and Pakistan.

Both India and Pakistan sent their junior teams to the tournament. The average age of the Indian team was about 17 years, whereas the average age of the Pakistan team was about 20 years. Coach Romesh Pathania has been with the Indian u-18 team for the past 18 months.

The Indian men came 2nd in the tournament, with the following match results:

Date	Result	Goal Scorers - India
Aug 3	India 3 - Singapore 1	Vikramjeet Singh (11, 24, 49 m)
Aug 5	India 4 - Malaysia 3	Gurvinder Singh (14 m) Vikramjeet Singh (52 m) Gurvinder Singh Chandi (55 m) Harjeet Singh (58 m)
Aug 6	Pakistan 4 - India 1	Vikramjeet Singh (33 m)

The team was captained by Gurvinder Singh Chandi of Punjab & Sindh Bank (PSB), who saw action for India's u-21 team that won the 6-nation Junior Challenge held in Poland in June.

The Indian team for the 4-nation tournament in Singapore was as follows:

Goalkeepers: Mrinal Choubey (Sports Authority of India), S. Vivek (Kerala)

Full-backs: Palvinder Singh (Air India Academy), Harjeet Singh (PSB), Ranjeet Singh (Delhi)

Midfielders: G. Singh (Air India Academy), B. Ganesh (Tamil Nadu), Vikramjeet Singh (PSB), Gurvinder Singh (Namdhari), Siddharth Pande (Mumbai), Vikas Choudhary (Haryana)

Forwards: Gurvinder Singh Chandi (PSB) - captain, Daler Singh (PSB), Dharmveer Singh (Chandigadh), Alden D'Souza (Mumbai), Danish Mujtaba (Uttar Pradesh), Chinglensana Singh (Manipur), Gopikrishnan (Tamil Nadu), Sarvanjeet Singh

Officials: Chief Coach - Romesh Pathania, Assistant Coach - C. S. Ravi Varma, Physiotherapist - P. L. Murugappan, Trainer - H. S. Cheema, Manager - Stephen Balasvami, Umpire - Virender Singh

Sandeep Singh about to take a drag flick in a 4-nation match aginast Argentina
Photograph courtesy SportLive.net

he Photograph of the Month for August 2006 features Sandeep Singh in action against Argentina at a 4-nation tournament held in Monchengladbach in April 2006. India beat Argentina 3-2 to finish 3rd in the 4-nation tournament, with Sandeep Singh contributing a penalty corner goal in the match.

he Ten Sports television channel filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the constitutional validity of the revised guidelines issued by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry on April 5, making it mandatory for all television channels to share with public broadcaster Doordarshan the live feed of all major sports events.

Ten Sports said it had acquired exclusive live telecast rights for 5 major sporting events in the July - September timeframe (see table below), and sought a direction to restrain Prasar Bharati, the public broadcasting corporation, from compelling the channel to share live feeds of these sports events.

Dates	Sport	Tournament	Venue
Jul 22-30	Hockey	Champions Trophy (men)	Terrassa (Spain)
Aug 14-29	Cricket	Tri-Series	Sri Lanka
Aug 28-Sep 10	Tennis	US Open	New York (USA)
Sep 6-17	Hockey	World Cup (men)	Monchengladbach (Germany)
Sep 27-Oct 7	Hockey	World Cup (women)	Madrid (Spain)

Ten Sports said in its petition that it had acquired exclusive telecast rights from the Sri Lankan Cricket Board in 2005 at a cost of about Rs. 218 crores. It said the channel would suffer a loss of Rs. 8 crores a day in terms of advertisements during the cricket series alone if the feed was shared with Doordarshan.

he Deputy Sports Editor of The Hindu, S. Thyagarajan, was honoured on July 29 with the inaugural M. Vijayachandran Memorial Sports Journalist Award for his contributions to sports journalism.

The award, instituted by the Tamil Nadu unit of the Kerala Union of Working Journalists in memory of the India Today sports reporter who passed away a year ago, carries a cash prize of Rs. 15,000, a memento and a citation. The Kerala Minister for Forests and Housing, Binoy Visvam, was the chief guest of the function and presented the award.

The function was sponsored by the Hindustan Group of Institutions. Also present on the occasion were sports personalities Shiny Wilson, Jayasankar Menon and I.M. Vijayan, who presented the citation to Thyagarajan. Thyagarajan donated the cash prize to the P. T. Usha School of Athletics.

A hockey specialist, Thyagarajan, in his 45-year-long association with The Hindu, has handled several national and international reporting assignments, including 6 Olympic Games, 6 hockey World Cups and 5 Asian Games.

The national-level award will be given once in three years.

Jaydeep Mukherjee is this edition's Visitor of the Month. Jaydeep sent the following email to BharatiyaHockey.org:

We have produced a 30 minute documentary film on the legend of Indian hockey, Leslie Claudius, who won 3 gold medals and 1 silver medal in 4 consecutive Olympics from 1948 to 1960. The film consists of his personal experience in the field of hockey, a detailed interview of him on the Olympics, some of his old footage, and his achievements on the field (as a player and as a coach).

The film has been made in the celluloid format, which costs more than documentary films made in the video format. If this documentary gets a favourable response, both nationally and internationally, we may take up another venture on some other hockey legend.

Statistics by B. G. Joshi

fter the game of hockey moved from grass to turf, hockey no more belongs to Asia, as far as winning the gold in FIH men's and women's tournaments is concerned. The Olympics, World Cup and Champions Trophy constitute the 3 FIH tournaments.

1 out of every 2 men's or women's FIH tournaments (52%) has been won by an European country. 1 out of every 3 men's or women's FIH tournaments (33%) has been won by Oceania (mostly Australia). The leftovers are then shared by Asia, America and Africa, as the table below shows:

Continent	Golds	Percentage
Africa	1	1%
America	2	3%
Asia	7	11%
Oceania	22	33%
Europe	35	52%
Total	67	100%

With regards to men's FIH tournaments on turf, the continent-wise success percentage is given below. Note that no country from Africa or the Americas has won any FIH tournament on turf. The last time an Asian country won an FIH men's tournament on turf was Pakistan in the 1994 Men's World Cup in Sydney.

Tournament	Editions	Africa	America	Asia	Oceania	Europe
Olympics	8	0	0	2	2	4
World Cup	5	0	0	1	1	3
Champions Trophy	27	0	0	2	8	17
Total	40	0	0	5	11	24

With regards to women's FIH tournaments on turf, the continent-wise success percentage is given below. Note that one country - Australia - has won more than double the number of FIH women's tournaments won by Africa, America and Asia combined. The last time an Asian country won an FIH women's tournament on turf was China in the 2002 Champions Trophy in Macao.

Tournament	Editions	Africa	America	Asia	Australia	Europe
Olympics	7	1	0	0	3	3
World Cup	6	0	1	0	2	3
Champions Trophy	14	0	1	2	6	5
Total	27	1	2	2	11	11

It is interesting to note that during the era when hockey was played on grass, India and Pakistan were the masters, winning 63% of the FIH tournaments held.

A total of 18 FIH tournaments (12 Olympics, 5 World Cups and 1 Champions Trophy) in men's hockey and 4 (all World Cup) in women's hockey were played on grass. The gold medal achievements of nations in these 22 editions of FIH tournaments held on grass are given below. Note that only 5 countries won the gold on grass as compared to 11 different countries on turf.

Country	Gold	Percentage
India	8	36%
Pakistan	6	27%
Germany	3	14%
Netherlands	3	14%
England	2	9%
Total	22	100%