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Dribbling skills made him the best
MUMBAI: Mohammad Shahid, who passed away at a hospital in Gurgaon on Wednesday, will always be remembered by his friends, teammates and fans as a jovial person off
MUMBAI: Mohammad Shahid, who passed away at a hospital in Gurgaon on Wednesday, will always be remembered by his friends, teammates and fans as a jovial person off the turf but a terror for the defenders on it.
A fun- loving character, Shahid used to play practical jokes on his teammates and liven things up when the chips were down in the dressing room. A gifted dribbler, Shahid used to be lightning quick on the field and mesmerising with his stick work. He played a key role in India winning its eighth Olympic gold medal in 1980 in Moscow and bagging a silver and bronze in the Asian Games (1982, 86 respectively).
Shahid was admitted to SSL Hospital at Banaras Hindu University with severe abdominal pain on June 29. With his health deteriorating, he was flown to New Delhi and admitted at Gurgaon’s Medanta Medicity hospital.
He died of liver and kidney failure on Wednesday morning. He was 56.
A GREAT TEAMMATE
“It’s like I have lost my brother,” Joaquim Carvalho, who was Shahid’s teammate in the 1984 Olympic and 1985 Champions Trophy in Perth, told HT on Wednesday. “It’s a very sad day for me and the entire 1984 Olympics team as we lost the second person after our coach Balkishan Singh, who passed away a few years ago. We all were very close.
“Shahid was my roommate for many years. He was a livewire in the team, always full of life, very jovial and fun-loving but at the same time totally dedicated to the game. If the team did not do well, Shahid used to be very upset but would soon perk us all up with his jokes or pranks, helping us gear up for the next match or tournament,” said Carvalho.
‘FAKE FAN AND ADMIRER’
Shahid was a great prankster but still very popular even among victims of his pranks. “During a camp before the 1984 Olympics, Shahid played a memorable prank on a teammate (I would not like to name him now). The women’s team was also stationed at the Nehru Stadium in New Delhi and Shahid wrote a fake letter on behalf of a woman player to the said teammate, telling him how she admired him. ‘I am a great fan and admire you a lot. You are also a right-out, I also play right-out,’ he wrote in the letter, asking him to look out for her during practice in the evening.
“For the entire evening session our teammate kept looking out for his ‘fan and admirer’. He later showed that letter to Zafar Iqbal. Many in the team knew of this prank and we all had a hearty laugh. Our teammate did not realise for many years that Shahid had pulled a prank on him,” said Carvalho.
Shahid would get ready for the game hours before, his jersey well ironed, his stockings would be perfect, his kit would be well organised. “For a match starting at 5 o’clock, he would be ready by 12-12.30 and would dribble the ball in the room for hours. He would not have lunch or breakfast and getting him out of the room for anything other than the match would be very difficult.”
According t o Carvalho, Shahid was the first to use the ‘half-hit’. Initially Shahid could not hit or push (a method of moving or passing the ball in which the stick is in contact with the ball and the ground as the player moves up the field).
“A left-hander, he developed this shot which is in between a hit and a push, very strong when struck from close range and he could beat any goalkeeper from the top of the D. Once on a tour of Australia, they filmed him for hours practicing the ‘half-hit’. Later, Dhanraj Pillay also used the ‘half-hit’ in his early days,” said Carvalho.
