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Journalism of Courage
His team mates butt in and start poking fun at him as he chats with the media persons on the sidelines after the match. The coach,passing by,can’t resist passing a comment either. “Speak in English,” he playfully instructs. All that leg-pulling distracts the 19-year-old and he fluffs his lines. Cue the laughter in the background.
Gurjinder Singh,who shot to fame after winning the Rs 1 crore award for the highest scorer in inaugural World Series of Hockey,doesn’t quite know yet how to deal with so much attention. But the drag-flicker better get used to this,for if he continues to play like he does,stardom is going to chase him.
“The turf near the edge of the circle is bouncy. The ball doesn’t come on to the stick nicely. I knew it from previous matches,so we started pushing the ball after stopping it. It worked,” he says. The heavy downpour that stopped the match twice also helped,with the soggy turf negating the bounce. However,it doesn’t take away anything from Gurjinder,scored twice to put Punjab 2-1 ahead before the rain interruption.
When play resumed,Services pressed hard and found the equaliser,with Sanwar Ali beating the Punjab goalkeeper with a drag-flick of his own in the 54th minute. At 2-2,Punjab were staring at a premature exit as they had an inferior goal difference.
RISING UP
Pushed for the first time in the tournament,Punjab rose to the challenge showing that they have both talent and temperament in their ranks. They pressed forward in waves,and in one fluid move in the 58th minute,Satbir Singh made a darting run on the left flank and hit a cross towards Akashdeep Singh,another hugely promising youngster.
Seventeen-year-old Akashdeep then drew the goalkeeper out and made him commit into a dive. He then calmly dribbled the ball around him before slotting it in. Punjab were ahead again and it was Services’ turn to go for an all out attack,seeking once again the equaliser that would send them through.
In the 62nd minute,however,a defensive lapse from Services gave Punjab the penalty corner that would seal the fate of the match. Gurjinder crouched again,focussed hard and produced an unstoppable flick that rattled the inside of the crossbar before falling on the right side for Punjab.
There was more hope than substance in Services’ attacks thereafter. And as they left their backline exposed to Akashdeep,the forward took the opportunity to score two more and take his tournament tally to 10.
In the end,7-2 didn’t reflect how close the match was. There was breathtaking pace,tension,drama and even a bit of sledging between the two sides. It was,to put it simply,a contest. And there haven’t been many in the tournament so far.
In fact,Services had more penalty corners than Punjab in the match. However,Punjab scored on three occasions out of six,they could convert only one out of seven. Perhaps if Services had a Gurjinder of their own,the scoreline might have been different.
UP 24 – TRIPURA 0
Elsewhere,Chandigarh stayed in the hunt with a second win in three games as they defeated Goa 14-2 in a Group D encounter,while Jharkhand beat Uttarakhand 7-1 for their second success in as many matches. In Group F,Uttar Pradesh hammered 24 past Tripura,while Railways blanked Assam 12-0.
THE RESULTS
Group A: Puducherry 2 (Manthena 2) drew with Bengal 2 (Asis Singh Sengar,Gurvinder Singh); Group B: Delhi 10 (Avatar Singh Mann 2,Umesh 2,Shyambir 2,Lalit,Pawan Singh Chouhan) beat Mizoram 1 (Lalringheta); Andhra Pradesh 5 (Ramesh Krishnan 2,Ramesh Setti,Sandeep Raju,Krishna Kishore) beat Himachal Pradesh 4 (Amit Lochab 2,Sarabjeet Singh,Lakhvir Singh); Group H: Manipur 9 (Chittaranjan Singh 2,Herojit Singh 3,Hera Singh,Gayan Enderjit,Jayanta Kumar Meitel,Abung Singh) beat Bihar 3 (Chotu Kumar,Brisha Bhengra 2).
