Off-side: Taking hockey to the hinterland, a big boost for the sport

Tournaments like this, away from the urban centres of India, will surely help the ‘national sport’ to plough back into the conscience of the wider country.

The hockey turf at the Sports Complex came up in four months’ time ahead of the Paris Olympics, where this tournament was allocated to Rajgir.  | Photo Credit: R V Moorthy

A two-hour drive through the meandering roads of Gehlaur Ghati from the Gaya Airport brings you to Rajgir, once the socio-political cradle of ancient India. The capital of the Magadha Dynasty between 544 and 413 BC, Rajgir today is like any other dusty small town in India but with well-laid-out public gardens and continues to be an important pitstop for the devotees of Buddha and Mahavira.

With the historical Nalanda University about 10 km away, the place also attracts history buffs. But for the past 10 days, it has hosted the best women hockey players on the continent. The Women’s Asian Champions Trophy Hockey at the Rajgir International Stadium, situated amidst the ambitious Rajgir Sports Complex and the Bihar Sports University campus, has created quite the stir in this small town in India’s hinterland. The locals had never seen any international sporting event from such close quarters but are now quick to exalt the virtues of Indian goalkeeper Savita’s quick reflexes or young Deepika’s panache as the team’s latest drag-flick expert.

The roads through the hillocks of Gehlaur Ghati, which saw India’s Mountain Man Dashrath Manji carve a 110m-long thoroughfare after 22 long years of hard work with just hammer and chisel in the 1960s and 70s, are now lined with cutouts of the Bihar Chief Minister and the six captains. But in the hamlets, dotting the paddy fields on our way, you will see no child wielding the hockey stick, but a few employing the cricket bat. Hockey is still an alien sport for the people living in the remotest parts of Gaya and Nalanda districts.

But tournaments like this, away from the urban centres of India, will surely help the ‘national sport’ to plough back into the conscience of the wider country, chipping away at the popularity of cricket. Hockey India, over the past couple of years, has taken the sport to the interiors of India. A part of the 2023 FIH World Cup was held in Rourkela, more than 300 km away from Odisha’s capital Bhubaneswar, but in the heart of Sundergarh district, the hub of hockey in the state. The FIH Women’s Olympic Qualifiers were held in Ranchi, with Rajgir now hosting the Women’s Champions Trophy.

“We are hopeful that tournaments like this will be the seeds for hockey’s growth in newer areas,” former India international and the president of Hockey India, Dilip Tirkey, told  Sportstar. “This has been a great initiative by the Bihar Government. We never expected this level of success at Rajgir. The crowd has been good, and we have definitely created a new fan base for hockey.”

The hockey turf at the Sports Complex came up in four months’ time ahead of the Paris Olympics, where this tournament was allocated to Rajgir. The centre in the future is expected to be the cradle of sport in Bihar, which over the years has had negligible presence at the Olympics. “The Bihar Sports University is the first of its kind. It is built on 92.6 acres, and 90 per cent of the construction is done. The State Sports Academy, Rajgir, acting as a State Centre for Excellence, will cater to 23 disciplines, both indoor and outdoor,” Raveendran Sankaran, a senior IPS officer and Director General of Bihar State Sports Authority, told  The Hindu. “After the (women’s) Asian Championship Trophy (ACT) hockey tournament, we will start our (hockey) academy.”

Meanwhile, the two five-year-olds, who had sneaked into the press enclosure with their family, egged their mothers to venture into the field of play for a selfie with Salima Tete. The Indian captain, posing in front of the huge mural of her on the hostel wall in the background, obliged them and many more young girls who had braved the otherwise tight security.

Hopefully, years ahead, a few of these girls will wear the India colours as well.