January 4, 1999

ASIAN GAMES
Runaway Winners

For once cricket is upstaged as a host of athletes returns from Bangkok with creditable performance and a bagful of medals.

Cricket. Cricket. Cricket. There have been years in the recent past when India's sporting vocabulary has consisted of just this word.

Not in 1998.

We never thought we'd see hockey goalkeeper Ashish Ballal in an Indian team again after officials kicked him around; we certainly never thought we'd see Ballal lying on his back, kicking his legs in delight, after leading India to its first Asian Games hockey gold in 32 years. The Netherlands, Spain, England, Germany and Australia are still better teams, but like a child learning to walk Indian hockey has begun to take its first tentative steps.

We never thought a day would come when P.T. Usha would retire; she seemed immortal. We never thought either that in the week she did another athlete would step forward to carry the torch. Jyotirmoyee Sikdar is owed much.

We never thought Milkha Singh's 400 m record set in 1960 would ever break, a reminder of the Flying Sikh's legend and of the unworthiness of his successors. Till a lanky Sikh called Paramjit Singh decided it was time to bury history.

If we never thought any of this would happen, what can we say about Dingko Singh. That he was a miracle. A gift from a god in a good mood. In the boxing ring, in a foreign land, a boy weighing a mere 118 pounds shouldered a nation's hope and won gold. Even today it stuns the mind: he was not initially in the team for the Asian Games? No, 1998 was not cricket's year.

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