World Cup Practice pitch still to be laid

Chandigarh: In a virtual cover-up for its failure to get Major Dhyan Chand National Hockey Stadium, the venue for the next month's World Cup Hockey Tournament ready in time, officials of the Sports Authority of India have virtually resorted to censorship blocking entry of media to the complex.

Incidentally, the national team will be arriving in the union capital on February 1 to start practice at new synthetic surfaces. "There will be lot of wax around and the playfields will be slippery for some days. So we have to get the home team adjusted to playing conditions as well as to the unpredictable weather here," says chief coach Harinder Singh, who incidentally was in New Delhi yesterday to see for himself the state of preparedness of the stadium.

In all 38 matches will be played during the World Cup. Besides, all participating teams will have a few warm up matches on each of the two competition pitches and a practice ground. This will be the first complex in the country to have three latest poligras synthetic playing surfaces.

While work on laying of the poligras on the practice pitch is still underway, civil works around competition playfield number II and the practice pitch will need another 10 to 15 days to complete. Though work has been going on round the clock at the venue, a lot needs to be fixed and done to make all the three synthetic surfaces available for participating teams in time.

Only two days ago, the main stadium was formally inaugurated. And yesterday, hockey team of the Central Reserve Police Force was called to have a training session there for a preliminary check on the behaviour of the new synthetic surface. A visit to the venue a day after the Republic Day was not without "hiccups" unexpected of a venue where sport's biggest event - the World Cup - is to be staged in less than a months' time.

Security deployed at the venue would not allow any one from media to enter the complex unless express or written permission has been obtained from some high ups in the Sports Authority of India, the body that is required to keep the complex under lock and key on pretext of maintaining it after the event is over.

It was after a while that a functionary of the SAI came on line to permit this correspondent's entry into the complex on the condition that no cell phone or camera would be allowed to be taken in. Name, address and contact details were entered in visitors' register kept at the gate. While technical experts of the Jubilee Sports Technology Limited, an Australian company, were busy examining the base for the practice pitch, they were hopeful that work on spreading the poligras will start in a day or two and may take a week to complete.

"All depends upon the levelling of the base. On the surface it looks good," said one of them. While the work on the main competition venue appears to be complete, there is still lot of wet point around. The sprinkler system and the subsequent drainage are yet to be put to critical test under the supervision of the FIH qualified technical experts. Unless a couple of good games are held on the new pitch, nothing can be said.

"We hope everything is fine. We have little or no time to rectify any technical or major snag even if it comes to our notice during pre-competition practice games," said an official present at the venue. "We are keeping our fingers crossed. Our immediate concern is to complete all works and get out as soon as possible," remarked another one looking after the civil works holding that unless proper curing is done, "some problems are bound to be there that can be checked and rectified after the World Cup is over."

When coach Harinder Singh reached the stadium, CRPF team had just arrived. "New pitches are slippery because of waxing of the surfaces. It will take a while to go. Though the home team will arrive here on February 1, other teams will start arriving by February 22, five to seven days before the actual start of the World Cup. We want our players to acclimatise themselves well with the playing conditions here.

"We are planning a couple of practice matches. On February 23rd we will play a warm up game against Argnetina followed by game against the Netherlands on 25th," says Harinder Singh promising that "it will be good show by home team. We hope to live up to high expectations. All problems have been taken care of and boys are training hard."

Source: The Tribune by Prabhjot Singh