Former India hockey captain Ashok Kumar was preparing to head into his afternoon siesta at home in Bhopal yesterday when he got a call from an old teammate HJS Chimni
Ashok Kumar, son of Indian hockey wizard Dhyan Chand
Former India hockey captain Ashok Kumar was preparing to head into his afternoon siesta at home in Bhopal yesterday when he got a call from an old teammate HJS Chimni.
The call made the 66-year-old spring from his bed, just like the wily 24-year-old striker he was 42 years to the day, when he scored Indian hockey's most important goal — the winner against Pakistan in the World Cup final in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
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"Chimni reminded me about that epic match on March 15, 1975, and I can't stop smiling since," Kumar, son of Indian hockey wizard Dhyan Chand, told mid-day yesterday. "It's not that I forgot, but it just slipped my mind, just like Indian hockey has slipped through off late.
But today is not about the present, it's about the past, so I won't be sour," adds Kumar. "We were favourites going into the final which had to be shifted to a football venue because the original ground was flooded due to heavy showers. We knew that a new ground could be anybody's game, so we began cautiously, and paid the price.
Pakistan took the lead and our boys were distraught. It was as though we had lost the game," said Kumar. Over three decades before Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan mouthed the famous 'sattar minute hai tumhare paas' (you have 70 minutes) dialogue to his women's hockey team in the 2007 blockbuster Chak de India, Kumar gave a similar talk, albeit ridden with expletives, to his teammates with captain Ajit Pal Singh among others, listening. "I can't tell you what I told them because we used too many bad words back then. I said something like 'you buggers, we still have 35 minutes and we can score twice," said Kumar.
India's Surjit Singh got the equaliser and then came Kumar's moment of magic. "With less than 15 minutes to go, Vadivelu Phillips took the ball from the flank and we got a long corner. Harcharan Singh took the hit and Ajit stopped the ball and relayed it to me. I dodged past two Pakistani defenders and flicked the ball into the far corner of the goal. Interestingly, the ball struck the corner of goal and rebounded back instantly leaving Malaysian referee Vijay Nathan confused. He didn't blow for a good three-four seconds. I was stunned, we all looked at him, that's when he knew it's a goal, and blew. I will never forget his sweet-sounding horn," recalled the four-time World Cupper (1971, 1973, 1975, 1978) and two-time Olympian (1972 and 1976).
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