Indians Getting Used To Wet

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30543, 11 September 1964, Page 13

Indians Getting Used To Wet

“If we lose we will have no excuses,” ■ said the Indian team manager (Air I. Al. I Alahajan) after the tourists arrived in Christchurch yesterday.

The players were fit, they had settled down into a good combination, and had adapted themselves to the wet grounds so often encountered in the North Island, said Mr I. M. Mahajan. Mr Mahajan considered India was handicapped by the mud and water on the field for the first test at Auckland, which New Zealand won, 3-1. The Indians were playing for only the second time on the tour and were in difficulties with the underfoot conditions.

Indian hockey still followed the style that had made it famous—the short-passing game, said Mr Mahajan. He assessed the standard of the present team as “quite good” and gave it a higher rating than the Indian side that won the international tournament at Lyon last year. Mr Mahajan was manager of the 1963 team as well and 14 of the 18 members of the present team were with him in France.

The standard of play in New Zealand was good and the Dominion’s team should do well in the Olympic Games, he said. He named Holland, East Germany, Pakistan, New Zealand, Japan, and Kenya as teams likely to dispute the major placings with. India. Half the members of the Indian side represented their country at the Rome Olympics and one of this number, the bearded, 36-year-old Udham Singh, will be taking part in his fourth Games. An inside left, he was selected for the 1948 Olympics in London but injured his hand at the last moment and missed the trip. But he won gold medals at Helsinki in 1952 and at Melbourne in 1956.