Everything that describes India’s journey to a bronze medal triumph in Birmingham on Sunday can also be ascribed to another match in another English city, Manchester, 20 years ago.
Indian Women’s Hockey, commonwealth games, knockout suit, worrying moments, controversies.
Everything that describes india’s journey to a bronze medal triumph in birmingham on sunday can also be ascribed to some other in shape in some other english metropolis, manchester, twenty years in the past.
Not like the protagonists of sunday’s win, but, the 2002 bunch become unfancied and underrated. However, it became a tenacious bunch — one that could not permit stuff consisting of international rankings come in the manner of dreams. This bunch of young ladies gave india’s its first and, to date, only commonwealth video Games Hockey gold.
“that turned into the most important victory of our profession, we are able to never ever overlook that. It modified our lives,” admits mamta kharab, then at 20, the baby of the group who have become an overnight famous person. She is the muse for chak de! India film man or woman of komal chautala.
The moment is huge enough for mamta to keep in mind not simply the win but each detail of the three knockout video games. Every of these video games came with its own share of particular troubles that the group had in no way faced before.
“the quarterfinal towards south africa changed into the toughest, harder than even the following games. We have been trailing 0-3 at 1/2 time. It become pouring difficult; the ground changed into heavy and ball motion tough… (with) cold winds that iced over you to the bone. It turned into additionally one of the fine matches of my existence. It examined us like no different recreation. At the wreck we decided as a team that we had not anything to lose and needed to move all out. Match ke baad kisi ke andar kuch nahin bachna chahiye, yehi decide kiya (we decided none folks ought to have something extra left to provide after the sport),” she recalls.
Pritam siwach, one of the seniors of the facet then, nevertheless receives the shivers deliberating that game. “our instruct (gurdiyal) bhangu sir stored announcing, ‘kuch nahin, sab theek hai (don’t fear, the entirety is o.K.) .’ however our bodies had turn out to be stiff as ice! I even instructed sita (gussain), the south africans, on the other hand, appeared cozy. However we were given on after which mamta sent a pass from the 25-yard line that i couldn’t even see sincerely. I dived on intuition and controlled to attain!”
India gained four-3, sita scoring the winner from a penalty corner and after that, the team might be forgiven for questioning it was invincible. For mamta, this become the game changer in greater approaches than only a unmarried win. “that win boosted our morale like nothing before. Returned then, new zealand changed into a supremely healthy and gifted aspect, ranked a great deal better than us. However we have been on a roll! We had the tempo and the starvation and after the quarterfinals, the momentum become with us. That carried us all the way into the final,” says mamta.
If the situations tested the indians as soon as, it was umpiring that attempted to rattle them subsequent. Towards new zealand, india got here from in the back of to degree the score 1-1 two mins before destroy, then needed to contend with a penalty stroke first provided then snatched away amid protests, before mamta struck domestic a penalty nook rebound in the 62nd minute, with india decreased to 10 gamers. Captain suraj lata devi become sent off for protesting. The stroke, incidentally, was awarded to india 4 minutes earlier after a purpose-bound pritam was intentionally blocked. It became taken away because india’s jyoti sunita kullu seemingly took ‘an excessive amount of time’. “i don’t understand why it takes place with indian girls’s hockey, specially in england! Kuch fantastic karna padta hai tabhi kuch milta hai (we should do something splendid and only then will we get the end result), not anything comes easy for us,” mamta shrugs.
The very last in opposition to england, though, noticed height controversy. Beneath stress against a relentless, superior host in the front of a especially vocal, capacity crowd, the indians held the top hand a great deal towards the run of play with a 2-zero lead before england fought back to stage the rating. The rating held at the end of 70 mins and the fit looked to be heading to penalties earlier than india earned a penalty nook in the final forty seconds. Mamta slotted in a deflection at the same time as the hooter went. The indians celebrated, the english protested and each waited for extra than an hour for the very last end result.
“without a doubt, we did no longer think we ought to win gold even though we were within the very last. However phir humein laga hum to bahut achha khel rahe hain aur hum england jaisi crew ko maar sakte hain aur gold bhi jeet bhi sakte hain (while we began the suit, we realised we had been surely gambling thoroughly and will honestly win gold). Then we were given that computer. I was the pusher and fullback suman bala was the hitter. The ball just rolled past the goalkeeper and that i think i used to be lucky to spot it and tap in speedy. However the hooter had gone and so it turned into not clean what the score without a doubt became,” mamta laughs.
Pritam is of the same opinion. “it’s authentic that our medal turned into confirmed once we reached the final however we wanted to head one step beforehand even though we knew that teams consisting of england and australia were miles beforehand people. Sach kahun toh tab aur baad mein end result kuch bhi ho, maine waisi groups nahi dekhi uske baad (to be sincere, regardless of what the end result, i’ve now not visible groups as true as them even later). They had been clearly too precise, too fast. Our first target changed into to defend well, now not concede too many and give people a danger to mention we reached the final via fluke. They were given at the least 15 pcs, however our goalkeepers, helen mary and tingonleima chanu, had been desirable, as changed into our rusher, manjinder kaur. And then got here the golden purpose while we didn’t consider time in any respect.”
But pritam additionally has a clearer idea of what befell. Or, what she believes passed off, on the grounds that there is no unmarried definitive model of the incident. “what we trust is that there was a hooter that went from the technical bench on the sidelines to mark the end of time. However the computer were started out and it needed to be completed earlier than play was known as off. Additionally, the on-discipline umpires had no longer blown the whistle yet. The english women reacted to the hooter, whilst we focused on the umpire. It took almost an hour for the technical officers to decide in our favour,” she explains.
Mamta recollects sitting in the dressing room, watching for a result, any end result. “we had changed and cooled down and everything was over and we were sitting inside the dressing room and had no concept what had befell, whether we had received or not. Believe if the game needed to be restarted after that for the penalty strokes! However aisa hello hota hai hamare saath. Jeetne ke baad bhi ladna padta hai jeet ke liye (this usually occurs to us. We have to preserve fighting even after winning to win).”
That 2002 win stimulated an entire era of ladies, along with rani rampal, to dream. “ woh gold aane se mere jaise players ne socha tha hockey khelne ka (players like me notion of gambling hockey because of that gold),” says rani. It additionally became a part of the folklore thru movies and the gamers continue to be the golden girls of indian hockey, triumphing in opposition to all odds and almost replicating the magic four years later (india received silver in 2006). Sunday will, with any luck, do the trick once more. Read More Hockey Sports News….
