Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The state has two teams representing the state at the prestigious Obaidullah Khan Heritage Cup that begins on Monday here after six years. But concerns remain about the involvement of local talent in the tournament.
The Obaidullah Gold Cup was launched with the formation of the Bhopal Hockey Association in 1931. Almost all the players of the country have played in this tournament at Aishbagh stadium, including Major Dhyanchand.
This tournament has led to dozens of players playing internationally, including several Olympians who have emerged from Bhopal.
International stars like Ehsan Mohammad, Latif-ur-Rehman, Akhtar Hussain, Inam-ur-Rehman, Aslam Sher Khan, Syed Jalaluddin Rizvi and Sameer Dad are some of the players from Bhopal who have played in the Obaidullah Gold Cup and emerged to become inspiration to many newbies getting into hockey.
Nevertheless, the Obaidullah Khan Gold Cup started facing major hiccups at the turn of the century, and after an attempted revival in 2010, was finally discontinued in 2014. The state government relaunched it in 2016 only to be discontinued again.
Now that the tournament is beginning once again, there are two teams from Madhya Pradesh. One of them is from the state academy which schools players from across the country, and the other is Hockey MP which houses its maximum players from Gwalior and Indore division.
Rizvi says, “Earlier we used to have 65 hockey clubs in Bhopal and we started off with playing internally to qualify for the tournament. This would start at least 15 days ago and four teams would be finalized for the tournament. Our teams were so strong that they would remain till the semis and even the finale.”
“The state government’s initiative to bring back the age old legacy is appreciable. Though there are two teams representing the state, there are very less number of players from Bhopal, which was once considered to be nursery of hockey,” he further said.
“We should have our resources being utilized primarily for our raw talent and then for outsiders,” added Rizvi.
Secretary of Hockey MP Lok Bahadur Vishwakarma says, “We have a process assigned for the selection of players for our team. We invite players from all districts to give them an equal chance of representation. Teams are not biased at all.”
