New Delhi: The World Cup starting this Sunday offers the Indian team a chance to script a happy story for a change. And one man is especially keen to get cracking. Sandeep Singh has unfinished business with the Hockey World Cup.
While the entire Indian team is fired up, the next couple of weeks are extra special for Sandeep, whose career was almost cut short just before the last World Cup.
Sandeep was on a train to meet up with the World Cup team four years ago when he suffered a freak injury, hit by an accidental bullet, crushing his dream to play for India.
"It's been an eventful journey, you could call it that," says Sandeep. "I faced a lot of ups and downs from 2006 until 2010. I have experienced things which I can't even share with anyone. But I'm still on the hockey field because of my family."
But like the phoenix Sandeep has risen from the ashes; the comeback complete after he captained the team to the Azlan Shah title win in 2009. It's time now to dazzle the fans at home.
"We have played plenty of games abroad as well as in India. But playing a major event like the World Cup, which perhaps is second only to the Olympics, and to play an event like that in front of your home crowd is a huge thing. But our team and players are prepared for it," he says.
India's preparations have hardly been ideal with the team lurching from one controversy to another. But the star drag-flicker is confident they will deliver.
"Our main target is to play the World Cup and to do well in the tournament. We are not thinking about which team is going to come or not, or how they are going about their preparations," Sandeep adds.
The first test for Sandeep and his team will be old rivals Pakistan, and that match could be decided by the battle of drag-flickers: Sandeep Singh vs Sohail Abbas.
Comments
0 comment