Do you remember Mohammed Shahid. Most of us probably don't. Following hockey was one of my childhood passions and Mohammed Shahid was very much a part of it. A dribbler of par excellence, stick work extraordinaire, he perennially posed threat to his opposite team.
Along with Jaffer Iqbal and Merwin Fernandez, the troika would often dribble their way into the opponents "D" - the scoring zone of field hockey. Sadly India lacked a striker like Hassan Sardar of Pakistan to convert his art into goals. For Legends Ric Charlesworth of Australia, Michael Peter of Germany, Akhtar Rasool and Hanif Khan of Pakistan of that time - Shahid was the player to watch. But lack of quality penalty corner specialists like our Dutch and German counterparts prevented us from going Semi finals of major tournaments those days.
Still the credit to most victories we had in Hockey during the late 70s - mid 80s goes to this man from the city of Varanashi. A gold medal in 1984 LA Olympics, would have been a fitting finale to a marvelous career. Sadly, his hard work and Indian dominance in that crucial game against Germany couldn't translate into goals, costing India a semifinal berth, forever sealing India's medal dream.
It was a sad day for hockey and sad that arguably the greatest dribbler of our time succumbed to ailments at a young age of 56 exactly 9 years ago. May he Rest In Peace.
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