With no immediate international commitment, except for the junior international meet, the focus has shifted to domestic hockey. We have the ongoing senior national championship and the 110th Beighton Cup.

The composition of teams in the national meet has changed a bit. After many objections and protests from the states in the last AGM of the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) about the induction of departmental sides like Punjab and Sind Bank (PSB), Indian Oil and the BSF, it was pointed out that the national hockey championship was mooted initially when the Rangaswamy Cup started and only the states were supposed to take part. Eligible along with them were the Services and Indian Railways. Later, two further additions were made ? Indian Airlines and Combined Universities.

Remember that these other entities are full-fledged members of the IHF, with voting rights.

A few years back some of the other departments wanted to participate and join the IHF. The IHF thought it fit, in its own wisdom, to absorb them as associate members without any voting rights. That was where most of the departmental sides like PSB, Customs, P&T, Indian Oil came in with donation of certain amounts. That?s how they started participating it the national hockey meet.

In the last AGM in Hyderabad, a committee was formed, of which I woo was a member, to formulate ways to solve this problem. There were two suggestions. The first was to have a separate championship for the associate members and the main one for the affiliated units.

But the IHF had made certain commitments to the departmental sides when they were inducted and hence certain compromises were necessary. It was decided that this time there was to be a separate qualifying meet in Delhi for the associate members only. Fourteen-odd teams took part in that meet and four qualified. They were Indian Oil, PSB, Namdhari XI and Air India.

The main stream of the national championship, meanwhile, identified eight quarter finalists (from the main league). The four associate qualifiers join these eight to make a 12-team quarter final stage of four pools of three teams each. The pool-toppers go through to the semis.

Bengal?s qualification for the quarters was heartening. In the last championship too, held in Jammu four years back, Bengal had made this stage. Of the 35 states taking part, five have made the quarters, plus three institutional teams. I consider this an achievement of no mean proportion. Sans a single astroturf now, with apathy at all levels of administration, our boys are fighting on equal terms with the rest of the country.

That brings us to the contentious issue of the astroturf.

It is really a matter of deep regret and hurt that despite the astroturf being around for over two decades now, and despite the world in general accepting this as standard, we in Bengal have to still fight to prove the utility value of the wheel all over again.

I don?t understand why the authorities refuse to pay attention to hockey, a sport that has given our state no less than 29 Olympic gold medals. I would like to know from those who are trying to shout out the rest, which other sport has brought so much international honour to the state? Football? Tennis? Cricket?

One thing I feel strongly is about the national coach. I believe that the prospective coach of the national side (he is yet to be chosen) should have been around to watch the many talents at the national championship. Such a large number of players would surely have offered him scope for selection.

The coach selection, I think, should be done at the earliest, giving him sufficient time to be able to get along with the boys.