Boy trips on hockey stick after rain, dies

MEERUT, AUG 23: A 15-year-old boy died during a game of hockey at the Sports Stadium here. The player's neck hit his stick as he fell on t...

MEERUT, AUG 23: A 15-year-old boy died during a game of hockey at the Sports Stadium here. The player’s neck hit his stick as he fell on the ground left slippery by rain.

Deepak Raj Shekhar had entered the field barely five minutes before the D N Inter College and Friends Sports Club match in the District Hockey Under-17 League tournament was to end. With both sides yet to score, Deepak asked his team manager to give him a chance. The manager relented.

Within minutes, he was trying to tackle the ball between the D and the central line when he slipped, his elder brother and teammate Kamal said. Sports officials rushed him to a nearby nursing home where doctors declared him dead on arrival.

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Officials and players said the match should have been suspended considering the condition of the ground. But District Hockey Association secretary and University sports coach Chhattar Pal Singh, who organised the match with the Regional Sports Stadium, denied that the ground was too slippery for the match to be cancelled. “As long as the ball rolls well, a match can go on. The playground is covered with enough grass,” he said.

Singh said international matches were now being played on astro-turf and budding players should be conditioned to play under various circumstances.

All matches have been suspended for the time being. A meeting of officials is scheduled for Tuesday evening.

Deepak’s father Puran Chand, an employee of 510 Army Base workshop, said: “My son had promised to come home as a winner.”

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A student of NAS Inter college, Deepak had been under Singh’s coaching for the past two years along with his brother. “He was a sprightly lad with a good physique,” Singh said.