Indians vs 'Indians' at junior hockey World Cup

The Indian team competing in the hockey Junior World Cup in Australia must be feeling at home as many of the competing teams have a large number of players of Indian origin.

At the ongoing tournament in Hobart in the state of Tasmania, Canada and Malaysia easily topped this list, with several players and management team members of Indian origin.

In what has become a sort of tradition now, Canadian junior hockey players usually have as many as nine players of Indian descent.

Anael Bassi, Inderjit Bath, Jeewanjot Bath, Sunny Kahlon, Jesse Kaloti, Patrick Persaud, Shankar Premakathan (goal-keeper), Shailnder Somal and Jaideep Singh Takhar must have made their respective families of expatriate Indians proud by playing under the red and white colours of the Canadian flag.

The head coach of the juniors' team from North America playing in the championship is Louis Mendonca. He learnt his stickwork in the back alleys of Pakistan's harbour city Karachi before moving to Ontario in Canada in the early 1980s.

His assistant is Minder Gill. Another trainer, Neetu Rishiraj, also has connections with the Indian subcontinent.

The story is not much different with the Malaysian line-up. This Southeast Asian team almost always has a number of Indian expatriates in its ranks.

While Canadian hockey teams always have players from Punjab in India, Malaysia has been depending on players with roots in southern India.

Shankar Shanmuganathan, Prabakran Periyathamby, Jivan Mohan, Logan Raj Kalikavandan and Jiwa Mohan are some of the members of southern Indian origin.

England also usually includes, like its national cricket team, a number of players from the Indian subcontinent in its hockey team. But they were clearly missing in the Hobart championships.

In spite of the fact that there are five Indian players in its senior national hockey team, New Zealanders have not included any Indians for the world championship being played in Tasmania.

If Umesh Parag has won nearly 140 caps for the New Zealand men's team, Mitesh Patel, Dharmesh Puna and Bevan Hari are also on their way to becoming indispensable for the national squad.

Ramesh Patel heads the New Zealand hockey body while Arvind Jasmat has been accompanying the New Zealand men's team as a manager for some years now.

The Indian boys, who had finished as runners-up to Australia in the last World Cup, reached the final, beating Germany 3-2 in the first semi-final.

Indo-Asian News Service