Formula One:Raikkonen crowned champion where hamilton fail to grab one in the last race of the season

Sunday October 21, 2007
SAO PAULO, Brazil (AFP) – Kimi Raikkonen won the 2007 Formula One drivers world championship here Sunday for Ferrari when he produced a flawless run to victory in the Brazilian Grand Prix.

The ‘ice-man’ from Finland drove superbly to grab the 15th win of his careeer and his sixth this year ahead of his Ferrari team-mate and local hero Felipe Massa.

Defending double drivers world champion Fernando Alonso of Spain finished third in his McLaren and ended up sharing second place in the drivers’ title race with his team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

The luckless 22-year-old British rookie, who began the day four points ahead of Alonso and seven in front of Raikkonen, lost ground at the start, falling back from second to fourth on the opening lap and then plummeting to 18th on lap seven when he suffered gearbox problems.

But he stormed back to finish in seventh place and score two points when he needed at least two more to make history by being the first rookie to lift the title.

German-born Nico Rosberg, the son of the original flying Finn Keke Rosberg, came fourth for Williams ahead of Poland’s Robert Kubica and German Nick Heidfelt in the two BMW Saubers.

The drivers title race ended with Raikkonen on 110 points and Alonso and Hamilton both on 109 at the end of the first three-way title battle for 21 years.

There was drama from the start when Brazilian Felipe Massa pulled clear from his ninth pole position into the lead followed by Ferrari team-mate Raikkonen, in the process squeezing Hamilton out of the way.

The move of the two Ferraris meant that Hamilton was held up behind them and this allowed Alonso through to take third place as they battled down through the Senna S bend.

The crowd went wild at seeing Massa lead but it all went sadly wrong for Hamilton as he was forced off the circuit on the opening lap and after running across a green painted run-off area he rejoined down in eighth place.

It looked almost impossible for him to fight back as he ran behind the leading group, but he worked his way back up to seventh before being hit by a gear selection problem.

His car slowed alarmingly for British fans and he slipped down to 18th place and a long way from not only the points, but possibly the world title.

At the front Massa sped clear followed by Raikkonen whilst there was carnage elsewhere with Italian Giancarlo Fisichella in his Renault rejoining from an off track excursion only to he driven into from behind by Sakon Yamamoto of Japan in a spyker.

Hamilton somehow solved his problems and regained his speed as he pushed his way through the field, rising from 18th to 11th with some supreme passing moves and fast driving.

The leaders began to dive into the pits to stop for fresh tyres and fuel after lap 20, Massa leading the way ahead of Raikkonen who led the race for a lap until he also pitted one lap later.

This left the defending champion Alonso out in front for a lap but he also pitted and after the first round of stops the field reassembled with Massa leading Raikkonen and then Alonso at the front.

Hamilton pitted after 22 laps and rejoined in 14th place from where he fought tigerishly to make up places, passing Brazilian Rubens Barrichello with a sweeping and aggressive dive through the Senna S bends on lap 28.

This hoisted Hamilton into 12th place but he was 50 seconds behind the leader Massa who was running two seconds ahead of Raikkonen with Alonso down in third 19 seconds adrift.

On lap 30, there was more drama when Kazuki Nakajima in his BMW came into the pits and crashed into his own team of mechanics, two of whom were sent flying and appeared to be slightly injured.

Hamilton, with great verve and concentration, was up to ninth by lap 33, just one place outside the points positions and chasing hard to haul in time on fellow-Briton David Coulthard who was running in eighth place.

By then, Poland’s Robert Kubica had passed Alonso at the end of the straight and soon after this Hamilton pitted again for hard tyres from ninth after 36 laps.

In 36 degrees heat by lap 40, Hamilton had been lapped by the two leading Ferraris who were in stunning form and more than a minute ahead of Alonso who recovered third after the pit stops.

The Ferraris were in a world of their own, running just seven-tenths of a second apart as the mathematics and probabilities occupied all the spectators wondering about the outcome of the world title race.

After 47 laps, Hamitlon was up to eighth but he needed to finish fifth if the positions remained unchanged ahead of him – a massively-demanding target.

When Ferrari pitted again, Massa came in first after 50 laps and Raikkonen stayed out three laps before pitting to push himself into a position where, when he rejoined, he was 1.9 seconds ahead of his team-mate.

This put him in line to win and collect the title unless Alonso, who also pitted, could claw his way into one of the top two positions, which proved beyond the Spaniard.

Raikkonen, with the scent of glory in his nostrils, then pulled clear by three seconds from Massa, the Finn going on to claim a famous victory.

PCB official visits India to study IPL structure

A Pakistan Cricket Board official will visit India to study the model of BCCI’s Indian Premier League (IPL), set to be launched next year.

PCB Director, Marketing and Communications, Ehsan Hameed Malik will attend a couple of presentations to be made by the IPL organisers in a bid to help the PCB launch its own league.

“We are planning to launch our own league as soon as possible and believe that a lot could be learnt from the IPL project,” Malik was quoted as saying by ‘The News’ on Thursday.

Malik, however, declined that Pakistan’s Twenty20 league would be a replica of the IPL.

“We will certainly incorporate some features already existing in the IPL, but our league will not be an exact copy of it. We will get a chance to make it a different yet successful event by following IPL,” he said.

The BCCI will host the IPL in April next year. The league will be a franchise-model where corporates and sponsors will be allowed to buy and run teams. Player buy-outs will be an added feature, something that cricket is not accustomed to.

The top four teams will make the semifinals with the winners contesting in the championship match of the event that will have a prize basket of USD three million.

Shoaib Akhtar, Pollock, Oram join IPL: BCCI

Controversial Pakistani fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar, South African pacer Shaun Pollock and New Zealand all-rounder Jacob Oram have joined the $3 million Indian Premier League (IPL), taking the total number of players who have signed for April’s first edition to 25.

‘To have ‘Rawalpindi Express’ (Akhtar) play for an India club team, together with a cricketer as talented as Pollock will be a dream-come-true for the cricket loving Indian fans,’ said IPL chairman and commissioner Lalit Modi here Tuesday.

‘It also once again reiterates our commitment to create a tournament that will showcase some of the best talent in the world. I am very excited about the inaugural season of the IPL, which now looks all set to kick off in April 2008,’ said Modi, who is also a vice-president of the Board of Control for Cricket India (BCCI) and president of the Rajasthan Cricket Association.

The players who have earlier signed to play in IPL include Shane Warne, Glen McGarth, Justin Langer, Mahela Jayawardene, Graeme Smith, Herschelle Gibbs, A.B. de Villiers, Ashwell Prince, Albie Morkel, Mohammed Yousuf, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Sanath Jayasuriya, Chaminda Vaas, Daniel Vettori, Stephen Fleming and Scott Styris.

IPL will feature eight teams in the first season, with each team playing seven home and away games against one another, taking the total number of matches to 56.

This will be followed by the semi-finals between the top four teams and the final.

The matches will be played between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m., which is expected to bring in lots of crowds.

Interest is bound to grow in IPL as India recently won the Twenty20 World Championship in South Africa last month.

Besides Modi, the IPL governing council has former BCCI president I.S. Bindra, BCCI vice-presidents Chirayu Amin and Rajeev Shukla, Delhi and District Cricket Association president Arun Jaitely and former India captains Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri.

All BCCI office bearers are ex-officio members of the IPL.

The governing council, which has been initially appointed for five years, will run and operate the IPL as a virtual company. The IPL hopes to grow the number of teams to 16 by 2010. It expects each team to operate as a franchise.

MERVYN DILLON JOINS INDIAN CRICKET LEAGUE

FORMER West Indies fast bowler Mervyn Dillon has followed the lead of his countryman Brian Lara and signed up with the Indian Cricket League (ICL).The lanky pacer currently in training with the T&T senior cricket team preparing for the KFC Cup, is expected to be in India by November to take up his three-year contract.

It is understood that the Toco-born player signed on the dotted line last week and is now officially the second player from the West Indies to have signed on to play in the lucrative Twenty20 cricket tournament.There is also talk of another former West Indies player from Trinidad, Lincoln Roberts doing likewise. The hard-hitting Tobagonian is currently in negotiations with the Essel Group—the Indian Media Magnate who owns the league.

Information coming to hand is that the ICL is looking to snap up another two players from the West Indies. It is understood that offers have been made to Jamaican hard hitting batsman Chris Gayle and his fellow all rounder Marlon Samuels.If the players join Lara and sign on, then the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) will have to come into the picture to indicate what is their stance on players from the West Indies joining the league.

Earlier this week, WICB president Julian Hunte warned regional players to seek legal advice before signing up for the controversial Indian Cricket League.Hunte said: “I have heard rumours of players being made substantial offers. Nothing has come to me formally.”

“I only hope that those players who have been made offers, get legal advice and our advice as to how they need to go about this.”

While some national cricket boards have expressed their reluctance to sanction their players competing in the ICL, Hunte said the WICB were yet to develop a policy but would do so shortly.

“It would be wrong for me to make any statement, except to say, most of the other Test match playing countries, have in fact, ‘banned’ their players, who have publicly accepted contracts for the ICL,” Hunte said.“We have not made any decision on it as yet…this is a matter which we will determine our own position on when we meet on the October 20 in Barbados.”

It is understood that players are being offered between US$450,000 to US$550,000 to join the league.

Sania, Maria crash out of Kremlin Cup

Sania Mirza was today sent home from the WTA Kremlin Open after her doubles quarter-final defeat at the hands of top seed Cara Black of Zimbabwe and Liezel Huber of the USA here.

Sania, partnering Patty Schnyder of Switzerland, went down 6-3, 5-7, 10-7 in the $ 2,340,000 Tier I tournament. The Indian had already crashed out of the singles event, losing her first-round match to Argentine Gisela Dulko yesterday.

Maria Sharapova lost to teenager Victoria Azarenka 7-6 (9-7), 6-2 in the second round. Sharapova was playing in Moscow for only the third time and has never made it past the second round. The loss was her first match in six weeks since her defeat in the third round of the US Open. The second-seed Russian had been sidelined because of a lingering shoulder injury.

She went ahead 5-3 and 40/0 in the first set but lost 10 consecutive points and allowed Azarenka to force a tie-breaker. “Maybe I was too self-assured at 5-3. But it all went downhill after,” Sharapova said yesterday.

The 18-year-old Belarussian saved three more set points in the tie-breaker before taking the set. Azarenka then broke the two-time Grand Slam champion twice in the second set for her first win over the fourth-ranked player.

“I tried to stay concentrated and believed I could win the match,” said Azarenka, ranked 32nd, who was a runner-up in her first WTA Tour final in Tashkent last weekend.

Vera Zvonareva of Russia beat sixth-seeded Amelie Mauresmo 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the first round.

“She took the chances she got,” Mauresmo said. “She began pretty bad and I was doing well, but then it went the other way.”
In the second round, top-seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova was the only seeded women to win Wednesday after she rallied to beat Gisela Dulko of Argentina 3-6, 6-2, 6-4.

Vera Dushevina upset Wimbledon finalist Marion Bartoli 2-6, 6-0, 6-4, and Russia’s Elena Dementieva defeated seventh-seeded Patty Schnyder of Switzerland 6-3, 6-4. Dementieva will face Azarenka in the quarter-finals.

In the men’s event, second-seeded Mikhail Youzhny of Russia and third-seeded Andy Murray of Britain both advance to the second round. Youzhny beat Ernests Gulbis of Latvia 6-3, 6-2, and Murray defeated Evgeny Korolev Vera Dushevina upset Wimbledon finalist Marion Bartoli 2-6, 6-0, 6-4, and Russia’s Elena Dementieva defeated seventh-seeded Patty Schnyder of Switzerland 6-3, 6-4. Dementieva will face Azarenka in the quarter-finals.

In the men’s event, second-seeded Mikhail Youzhny of Russia and third-seeded Andy Murray of Britain both advanced to the second round. Youzhny beat Ernests Gulbis of Latvia 6-3, 6-2, and Murray defeated Evgeny Korolev of Russia 6-2, 6-4. Fourth-seeded Paul-Henri Mathieu went through to the quarter-finals by defeating Russian qualifier Igor Kunitsyn 6-3, 6-4.

Both Kuznetsova and Dulko struggled to hold serve. Kuznetsova, the 2004 US Open champion, converted only six of 16 game points for the win.

“It seems to me that I was playing against myself, surface and balls today, not against her,” said Kuznetsova, who had four aces and 55 unforced errors.

“I played bad but nevertheless won the match.”

Mills: Players told don’t sign IPL contracts

Heath Mills has slammed the Indian Premier League contracts placed under the noses of Daniel Vettori and Scott Styris as “the worst contracts I’ve seen in professional sport”.

The New Zealand pair were announced by the IPL as new signings this week but Mills, the New Zealand Cricket Players’ Association boss, revealed yesterday that only Styris has put pen to paper and it was against Mills’ recommendation.

Mills claims the pair were subjected to considerable pressure by the IPL and New Zealand Cricket to sign otherwise the lucrative three-year offers would have been withdrawn.

“We recommended they didn’t sign the contract put in front of them and I’m not sure Daniel has signed,” Mills said.

“The contracts put in front of the players are the worst contract I’ve seen in professional sport. It is 1½ pages long, it is a MOU (memorandum of understanding), and players around the world have been signing it and they have no idea what they are signing away.

“It does not stipulate the rights they are giving away to Indian cricket. I’m concerned our guys signing it will put them in breach of their New Zealand Cricket contracts as well but we (NZCPA) and New Zealand Cricket do not agree on that.”

Mills confirmed Vettori was uncomfortable with a particular clause in the contract that stipulates that “the player is not allowed to play for any other team that may at any point in time qualify for the Champions League”.

The IPL is a domestic Twenty20 competition to be held in India in April next year, offering US$3 million (NZ$4.26 million) in prizemoney.

The Champions League is an extension of that and the plan is for the top two teams from each of the four domestic competitions in Australia, South Africa, England and India to play in a football-style Champions Trophy tournament in October next year.

New Zealand Cricket supports the sanctioned tournaments – which are in direct competition to the outlawed rebel league in India – and they hope to get two New Zealand domestic teams into the Australian Twenty20 qualifying competition.

But Mills said NZC is overlooking the fact that if Vettori signs his current IPL contract then he would not be able to play for Northern Districts if they qualified for the Champions League.

“I know Daniel is concerned about the contract put in front of him and is trying to get some late changes to it,” Mills said.

“Those guys were under pressure to sign otherwise the deal would be taken away and our advice to the players was don’t sign the MOU.

“I don’t think it is a very good contract at all. It is a 1½ page document. Our contracts are 100 pages long and people are very aware of their obligations and restrictions.

“New Zealand Cricket endorsed and supported it (IPL) and encouraged players to join it but the contract could potentially put them in breach.”

NZC chief executive Justin Vaughan is aware Mills is concerned about the contracts but he did not share those concerns. Vaughan supports the IPL and has little time for the rebel league.

Vaughan’s priority is getting a resolution to talks with Craig McMillan, who wants to accept an offer to play in the rebel league despite having signed a New Zealand Cricket contract.

Vaughan said talks with McMillan were not possible this week due to the Canterbury batsman being unwell. But the issue is now pressing because the national selectors need to know whether McMillan is available for the one-day team to tour South Africa next month.

“Talks have to start again next week because we’ll need to know Craig’s situation by the end of next week,” Vaughan said.

EPL gurus to train Indian football coaches

Four coaches from the English Premier League (EPL) will train 80 young football coaches in India over a period of three years under the Premier Skills project.

The project is being taken up by the English Premier League in partnership with the British Council, Indian Football Association and the Sports Authority of India.

Forty coaches will be trained in Delhi and the remaining in Kolkata.

Premier Skills will provide an opportunity for young coaches to hone their skills through the training provided by world class professionals thereby enabling them to coach better.

The premier skills project was piloted in Egypt earlier this year.

Shoaib set to join Indian Premier League

Shoaib Akhtar is set to join the Indian Premier League (IPL) and has sought permission from Pakistan’s cricket authorities.

“I have been approached by the Indian Premier League and I have applied for permission from the Pakistan Cricket Board to sign the contract,” Akhtar told AFP on Saturday. “I have always liked the Indian crowd and have always loved to play in India. Hopefully I will be in the Pakistan team for next month’s tour there and will also play in the league.”

Mohammad Yousuf, the Pakistan middle-order batsman, and eight Sri Lankan cricketers, including Muttiah Muralitharan and Mahela Jayawardene, have already signed with the IPL.

The IPL – sanctioned by the International Cricket Council – is a Twenty20 competition scheduled to be launched next April. It will offer US$3 million in prize money and feature eight franchises participating in a 56-game season. The top four teams will then face off in the semi-finals, with the winners contesting the championship match.

Inzy may now take the IPL route

KARACHI: Former Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq is expected to cancel a contract with the rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL) to join the official Indian Premier League (IPL), ‘The News’ learnt here on Friday.

Inzamam, who is set to retire from international cricket after playing in next week’s Test against South Africa in Lahore, has shown an interest in signing up for the IPL, a contest recognized by the International Cricket Council (ICC).

According to Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chief Nasim Ashraf, there is a big chance that Inzamam — who was touted as one of the biggest stars roped in by the breakaway league — will decide to cancel his contract to sign a new one with IPL.

Ashraf told this correspondent that BCCI officials, who are planning to launch the IPL in a grand manner next April, are yet to show an interest in Inzamam but was quick to add “that they would certainly sign up Inzamam once told that the player is interested in playing in their league”.

Inzamam was one of the four Pakistani players including Mohammad Yousuf, who initially joined the ICL this summer. Yousuf, however, has announced recently that he has cancelled a contract with the ICL to make himself available for national duty. Yousuf has also signed a contract to play in the IPL.

Ashraf said that Inzamam may also follow suit. “I will talk to the BCCI people soon and hope that Inzamam gets a good offer from IPL.”

Chak de India: Hockey vs cricket

SEPTEMBER 2007 will definitely go down in the history of Indian sports as an important month that gave India dual achievements of clinching Hockey Asia Cup and T20 Cricket World Cup. As we keep tab on the sports news, it is well known that the young turks of Indian cricket team did a fantastic job and brought home the first T20 World Cup.

The hangover of winning the T20 World Cup is still alive although we have slowly started feeling the pinch of being defeated after a great win. Australia has already shown our team the taste of defeat in the 2nd one day match of the Future Cup played at Kochi. We appreciate rain god for saving our team in Bangalore from probably being 2-0 down in the series.

The basic difference between the two teams is that Indian cricket team is filled with cricketing heroes whereas the Australian Cricket team is filled with performers, star performers, and super star performers. Statistically Australians always looked better even in the T20 game. The sheer luck in the game of cricket turned the tide against them.

 Murphy’s Law holds true in all forms of the game and in life experiences. Even though one does everything right, if things have to go wrong these would go wrong in spite of all the precautions. That’s what happened with the teams against whom India launched its crusade to win the T20 World Cup.

However, no doubt about our lads who sparkled with their heroic performances to carry on the winning trail till they achieved the World Cup. Bravo! It was indeed a remarkable feat to achieve. The young Indians went on to defeat the rampaging England, South Africa, Australia and Pakistan convincingly.

While in 7th Men’s Hockey Asian Cup, the Indian hockey team showed superior performance right from the beginning of the tournament. Indian hockey team did not lose even a single match in the tournament and defeated the strongest team of the tournament; once in the league match and second time in the final. India defeated South Korea 7-2 in the final, which is one of the biggest margins in a final from the yardsticks of present day hockey matches.

We scored total 56 goals and gave away just 5 goals in 7 matches that we played. We also scored 20 goals in a match against Sri Lanka and did not give away a single goal. This equaled the biggest margin of victory in Asia Cup record.

We remained the lone team to keep our tally clean by not losing any matches among the 11 teams, and topped the tough six team pool B. This is a rare all win record in the pool stage. This was definitely a marvelous performance by our hockey players considering the fact that our neighbour Pakistan was not able get through even the semi finals of the tournament.

In both the cases we were not very confident of our team’s performance in the beginning. It all started with the heroic performance of our players in the middle of the tournaments. In cricket, if it was Yuvraj Singh, Dhoni, Gambhir, and Uthappa, then it was Baljit Singh (goalkeeper) and his men in the hockey team.

While Baljit Singh displayed the brilliant feat of stopping the goals from the opponents’ team, and others went on onslaught of scoring goals mercilessly. Both the teams deserve high degree of praise and accolades, because both have brought glory to the nation and kept the pride of the game.

Actually hockey team deserves little better treatment and higher praise than cricket because hockey is our national game.  But, do we treat both games equally in India and do we have any special attachment for our national game? Let us look at a few of the events that unfolded after hockey team and cricket team won the respective Asia Cup and T20 World Cup.

Indian cricket team received Rs 2 crores as a tournament prize after winning the T20 World Cup. BCCI, the governing body of Indian cricket announced Rs 8 crores for winning the final. BCCI even gave away Rs 4 crores for reaching the final and Rs 1 crore for Yuvraj Singh alone. Players received cash awards up to Rs. 21 lakhs from the state governments to which they belong.

Funniest! Uthappa received Rs. 3 lakh from government of Kerala, just for the reason that his mother is from Kerala. Players received apartments worth Rs.25 lakhs from Sahara. A new award, ’Jharkhand Ratna’ honour is being introduced for the first time and will be presented to Dhoni for making the state proud, on the 7th foundation day celebration of the state on November 15 at Ranchi.

News channels ran special news bulletin, editions and highlights throughout the night. Special news editions, cover stories and posters were covered in almost all the newspapers for the next two days. There was heroes’ welcome for the team on their arrival in Mumbai.

They were graciously received from the airport and given a gala welcome by the Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, Deputy CM R R Patil and their Cabinet colleagues. There was 30 km long victory procession organized that lasted over five hours. I think even the erstwhile kings of the country might have envied this Maharaja’s treatment.

And what was the reward of winning Asia Cup team? Individual greeting message was sent by our Honorable President. For the news channels and papers, it was just a sports news item and featured in the sports section. No special mention in electronic media or print media about the team or players.

IHF had announced an incentive for the team where they would receive Rs 1000 for every goal scored and lose Rs 2000 for every goal conceded. What a lucrative incentive! The state governments did not even send a congratulatory note to the respective players of the state; forget about the honour and prize.

Most of us will definitely feel differently about the treatment of the players of these two legendry games of India. However, one wonders, if this is the status of Indian cricket in the minds of government, people and media, then why not make it the national game of the country? Why is this diplomacy about keeping hockey the national game when the Indian masses are more concerned about cricket? True to the sense that hockey has always kept Indian tri-colour proud with its marvelous past of winning continuous Olympic and Asiad Gold medals. But this cannot be forgotten that those were the days when the legendry players like Major Dhyan Chand were in the hockey team.

World cannot forget his magic hockey stick, which was misunderstood to have a magnet embedded and was changed few times in a game in Germany. The trend of winning World Cup, Olympic, and Asiad medals continued till 1980 and we had some of the finest payers of the game on our side. 

But the golden era of hockey could not stretch and downward trend was noticed thereafter. However, there has been less effort and more politics in resurrecting the past glory of the Indian hockey.

Subsequently, the Cricket World Cup of 1983, made dramatic shift of interest of Indian people, government and media toward the game. The dark horse of the game, India’s cricket team defeated mighty West Indies to bring home the solitary cricket world cup.

Hockey took a backseat and even good efforts and good show by the hockey players did not enthuse media to cover them more and bring them back to be the hero in the hearts of the Indian public. Surprisingly even the government remembered hockey team only during the time of World Cup, Olympic, and Asiad.

Recognition, incentives and facilities went on declining for the hockey players and today it is nowhere close to the cricket players. Now, a great performance by the hockey team has been overshadowed by the cricket T20 world cup.

We understand that because of the corporate funding and advertiser’s money cricket is becoming richer everyday and at no point of time hockey can compare to cricket on the popularity index in India, especially with the young generation.

But, we should not forget hockey is the game world learnt from us and we are now distancing ourselves from the game. It is time that the corporates, media and Indian Hockey Federation take care of the future of hockey and its players and the government should come forward openly to promote it as the country’s favourite game.

Incentives, prizes and support should be made lucrative so that people crave to become a hockey players rather than joining the mad rush of becoming cricket players. I personally do not feel that Indian hockey has lost its fan following. Indians by heart are attached to hockey; otherwise “Chak De” would have not been applauded so much.

 Thanks to Badshah Khan who truly understood the spirit of Indian hockey and acted with so much of passion. The promise that Indian hockey players have shown recently reflects that the revival of hockey in India is not a dream. It is going to be a reality. I surely hope so!