Even An Indo-Pak World Cup Opener On A Sunday Is Not Good Enough!

Watching Sohail Abbas, one of the finest penalty corner specialists the world of hockey has seen hit the crosspiece twice against India on Sunday was proof enough that tragedy had always had its intrinsic links with sports.

The current Pakistani hockey team is clearly a better side than the Indian hockey team in terms of skills and commitment. The Indians, in spite of all the criticisms they received over the past three decades for not doing well at the international level, in all fairness still form a world class side, but the Pakis are better. Yet on Sunday, playing in front of the home crowd at the Major Dhyan Chand Hockey Stadium in New Delhi, the Indians put up a spirited performance. An inspired show by the players, backed by a vocal crowd of 20-odd thousand, Pakistan was clearly on the backfoot right from the start. As the game progressed, the pressure kept mounting on the Pakis and they crumbled. Penalty corners were not converted, the gameplan fell apart and panic slowly set in.

India, meanwhile did everything right. Penalty corners were converted (one each by Shivendra Singh of a Deewakar Ram attempt and Sandeep Singh), they took control of the game early and did not relent ever since.

Two goals each on either side of the half-time gave them an unassailable 4-0 lead and even though Abbas finally pulled one back from a penalty corner, 12 minutes to the final whistle, the Pakis by then had given up and they needed something extraordinary to make up for the deficit.

The organisers had not left any stones unturned to make the event a successful one, but in spite of all the efforts, parts of the stands were vacant. This, in spite of the match being played on a Sunday, is certainly not a good sign for the National Sport of India but it's pointless complaining about certain things in this day and age. Certain revolutions have simply lost purpose somewhere along the way.

Probably the organisers should have arranged for all those, who campaigned to make the event a success to be present at the ground, as they had promised in the promotional campaigns. In their absence, the whole 'build-up' came across largely as a publicity gimmick.