2004: What lies ahead

There’s a lot of sacrifice involved in making it to the Olympics. For the past two years, all we’ve done is train 10 hours a day, every day. I wanted to continue my education along with the training but it wasn’t possible.

Facilities have improved for Indian archers today and we can now train with imported equipment; also, we receive tips from top Korean coaches. That means we can now plan our performance — unlike, say, during the 1992 Games, when Limba Ram was burdened by high expectations. I am aiming to better my record at Athens, winning a medal takes time. Archers require a minimum of six years to mature and produce result at the Olympics. Away from the performance, there’s obviously a lot of excitement, especially about meeting fellow athletes from other countries at the Games Village. I’ve heard a lot about it from seniors like Limba Ram and Lalrem Sanga…

Today, I can say one thing clearly: I have no regrets about going against my family’s wishes and choosing a career in sport. Archery does not fetch you jobs easily in India. But it has given me a lot of happiness. And I get to represent my country at the Olympics.

INDIA’S CRICKET TOUR OF PAK

Abdul Waheed Khan, Senior Cricket Correspondent for The News, Pakistan

If you ask me why I’m looking forward to India’s tour of Pakistan early next year, I can, offhand, give numerous reasons. When the world is shrinking, it remains a tragedy that Pakistan and India remain far apart and the people have little chance of regularly interacting with each other.

It is a positive sign that both governments are now trying to make serious peace overtures to each other but still so fragile and low on trust are relations between the two countries that it’s only when the Indian team lands in Pakistan would I be convinced that the series is finally taking place. It isn’t likely that such strong feelings will disappear with one series but, as Sanjay Manjrekar said recently in Lahore, cricket can help to reduce the divide and build bridges. I saw it happening in 1999 at Chennai — and I also saw the fury of the Kolkata crowd on the same tour. From a purists’ view I look forward to the series just because of the intensity, excitement and quality performances it could produce. What better sight than Shoaib Akhtar v Tendulkar or Zaheer Khan v Inzamam-ul-Haq. What better contest than Javed Miandad, forever the streetfighter, pitting his natural cricket instincts against the suave and very methodical John Wright.

If films like J.P. Dutta’s LOC leave a lot of Pakistanis disappointed and angry, the forthcoming cricket series could began an exercise where we learn to be more tolerant, patient and sincere to each other and bury decades of distrust and hatred.

EURO 2004 FOOTBALL, PORTUGAL

Mushtaq Khan, Local Government Councillor in Manchester

Though 2004 won’t be as hectic as this year — I chased Pakistan all over South Africa during the cricket World Cup — my friends and I look forward to Portugal. We’ll be based in Porto and have tickets for some of the group matches involving Italy, Spain, Holland, Germany. My most prized possession is the ticket for the Germany v Holland game. And I’m praying I manage to get the tickets for England v France game.

Being neutrals — I’ll be carrying a Blackburn Rovers flag as proof — makes it easier for us to appreciate the football. France are the outright favourites; after the World Cup blip the big stars are eager to set the record straight. Marginally behind are the equally desperate hosts Portugal; this is the last chance for the Golden Generation of Figo and Rui Costa to deliver. It’s also high time Spain shed their underachievers tag. Holland is an interesting team, they remind me of the Pakistan cricket team. Great team, great individual players but a self-destructive streak. For England, the biggest plus is Gerrard; had he been around at the World Cup England would have done better.

Off the field, we’ll be looking forward to a bit of a holiday. Unlike in cricket, where matches take up the whole day, here we’ll have enough time travel and see the sights. There will be quite a few from England — about 50 per cent of the tickets have been bought by English fans so we’ll be looking forward to seeing a lot of familiar faces. But there won’t be many hooligans making their way to Portugal considering the heavy screening by the authorities.

AUSTRALIA’S TOUR OF INDIA

Sanatan Sau, Head Mali, Eden Gardens

While the schedule for the series hasn’t been fixed, I’ve heard Eden Gardens will stage a Test. I’ve prepared pitches here for the past 25 years but matches with Australia are the high points. Of course, I’m a professional and it’s my job to prepare pitches but when our country plays we get emotionally involved. Australia is the No 1 team and we beat them here the last time; that was a famous match, with brilliant shows by Harbhajan Singh and VVS Laxman. This time, too, people expect some such performance from our cricketers — not the kind of show they put in the Tri-series final two months ago. I have one regret, though: Steve Waugh will not be playing here again. Eden Gardens will definitely miss Steve. We watch him closely at the nets, and in actual play; he’s always been a jovial character. One more thing: I’ll be praying for Saurav Ganguly to score runs here. This ground is jinxed for him. He played under-19 here and scored many runs. I would go to his house and prepare the pitch there, where he practised. But unfortunately he never got runs here at the highest level. We will hope that he scores runs here this time; if he does, I’ll go to the Kali temple and offer puja.

Contributed by: Sandeep Dwivedi, Manish Kumar, Shamya Dasgupta, Chandresh Narayanan, Sabyasachi Bandopadhyay