The Hindu : Sport / Hockey : Stars relive the past for noble cause

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Thursday, Jul 08, 2004

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Sport - Hockey

Stars relive the past for noble cause

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, JULY 7. Coming together for an ailing mate, some hockey stars relived the past to match their young opponents for an hour at the Shivaji Stadium here on Wednesday. The veterans played a goalless draw with an Indian women's selection in a charity match held to raise funds for Olympian Vivek Singh, now battling for life in Varanasi.

The Union Sports Minister Sunil Dutt sanctioned Rs. 2 lakh and offered free medical assistance to Vivek, who is suffering from cancer, while the Olympians contributed Rs. 1 lakh.

Mr. Dutt also suggested the formation of a corpus fund to help needy sportspersons in such matters. "I will be the first man to come and join such an effort,'' he assured the sporting fraternity.

The match was organised by the Hockey Journalists Association, which collected a sum of Rs. 5 lakh with generous donations from Indian Oil Corporation, Jawaharlal Nehru Hockey Society, Ten Sports, Hero Honda, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Oriental Insurance, Rakshak and ESPN-Star Sports.

The Indian Hockey Federation had already announced an aid of Rs. 1 lakh

The veteran stars came from far-flung places. B. P. Govinda, M. P. Ganesh and V. Baskaran showed glimpses of their art, as did Ashok Kumar, the most impressive player on the field.

In tandem with Mohd. Shahid, Ashok produced some excellent runs, leaving the opposition in a trance. Merwyn Fernandes, Joaquim Carvalho, Zafar Iqbal, Mohammad Jalaluddin and Mukesh Kumar were the others in action.

The match was played in three sessions and Aashish Balal did a good job under the bar for the veterans against the fast moving opponents.

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