Goalie Baljit stars in IndianOil's victory
Kolkata   12-Nov-2011


The victorious IndianOil team with the day’s hero, Baljit Singh, in a red jacket, at the SAI Eastern Centre on Friday afternoon.

IndianOil won the Coal India 116th Beighton Cup hockey tournament defeating ONGC 2-0 in the final at the SAI Eastern Centre on Friday. Affan Yousuf and Bharat scored against the run of play as ONGC laid siege on the rival goal following a barren first half.

That IndianOil managed to keep a clean sheet and emerge champions was made possible largely due to some spectacular goalkeeping by India discard Baljit Singh. Baljit had a freak accident during training with the India squad in July 2009 and lost sight in his right eye. He has been ignored by the India team since. But the goalkeeper is not ready to give up yet.

“I just want to prove to everyone that I am still better than a lot of others. The way I was ignored by the India team hurt.

They could have told me I was a handicapped person and so not eligible to play. But the team management did not say anything of that sort and dropped me,” said Baljit, who was named Man of the Match in the final and got R 35,000 for it.

On Friday, Baljit replaced another India goalkeeper Devesh Chauhan after the first session and was immediately put to test as Bikash Toppo, Sandeep Antil and A Ekka combined well to launch a barrage of attacks. Between the 45th and the 55th minutes Baljit had to make six saves as ONGC were looking to outplay IndianOil.

After saving a penalty-corner diving to his right, Baljit recovered to keep paw out a rasping hit by Hamza Mujtaba.

He then showed amazing reflexes to save the rebound, got injured in the process but gritted it to the end. Not once was it evident to the motley crowd that turned up for the final realise that the goalkeeper had just one good eye.

As the hour mark neared, frustrated by their attacks not translating into goals, ONGC pushed up leaving themselves vulnerable to counter-attacks.

Bharat moved down the left and Yousuf stretched to guide the ball in breaking the deadlock in the 58th minute. Three minutes later, IndianOil doubled the lead through the same combination. This time Bharat slotted home after Yousuf had made the run as the ONGC defence, Baljinder Singh in particular was caught napping.

IndianOil won a total prize purse of R2.5 lakh of which R1 lakh was promised by the state sports minister Madan Mitra and ONGC got R 1lakh.

Union sports minister Ajay Maken, who watched the final, promised a purse of R5 lakh for the tournament every year. The Bengal Hockey Association also made a request to Maken to push for an India-Pakistan hockey match in the city to help revive the sport in Bengal.