Hyderabad to host 57th Nehru Senior Hockey Tournament

Hyderabad: Hyderabad will for the first time play host for the 57th edition of Nehru Senior Hockey Tournament as the matches will be played at the South-Central Railways Sports Complex in Hyderabad from November 14 to 25. The trophy of the 12-day tournament was unveiled here on Thursday.

The Jawaharlal Nehru Hockey Tournament Society (JNHTS), which has been conducting the country's most premier hockey tournaments since its inception in 1964, for the first time in 56 years, moved its senior and most prestigious tournament from New Delhi to Hyderabad.

The Gooncha Group is the title sponsor and the total prize money for the teams and players in the premier tournament is around Rs. 10 lakh. The winning team will stand to receive Rs.4 lakhs, the runners-up will bag a purse of Rs.2 lakhs, and the 'Best Player of the Tournament' will take home a Benelli Imperiale 400 BS6 Classic Motorbike. Moreover, the tournament organisers will be presenting the 'Player of the Match' award of each match with a FLASH hockey stick.

As many as 16 top brass hockey teams of the country will vie for the 'Inder Mohan Kapur Nehru Senior Winners' Cup'. The participating teams are Indian Railways, Army XI, Indian Air Force, Indian Navy, Punjab & Sind Bank, Punjab National Bank, SC Railway, Canara Bank, Indian Oil, ONGC, Mumbai XI, Tamil Nadu XI, Telangana XI, CAG XI, MP Hockey Academy, Bhopal and Air India.

Gooncha Estates Pvt Ltd will also be launching the Inder Mohan Kapur Lifetime Achievement Award for excellence in hockey. This will be dedicated to a hockey personality for a lifetime of service to the game as either a player/coach/umpire/administrator with a glittering award comes a cash prize of Rs. 5 Lakhs. This will be given away on November 25 by the guest of honour, after the final match.

This tournament is being conducted in honour of the JNHT Society's Founding Father, Inder Mohan Kapur. August 19, 2021 marks his first death anniversary and to commemorate this, the 'Nehru Senior Gold and Silver Cups' which were donated by IM Kapur and have been in circulation for 56 years have now been melted and recrafted in the exact same design to be henceforth known as the 'Inder Mohan Kapur Nehru Senior Winners' & 'Runners-Up Cups' respectively.

IM Kapur (Industrialist and Philanthropist) is also the Founding Father of the Gooncha Group. This Society was incorporated in the fond memory of Independent India's first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to promote the ecstatic national game hockey. Since then no stone was left unturned to take it to a superior league.

The all-time greats such as Dhanraj Pillay, Pragat Singh, Zafar Iqbal, Ajit Pal Singh and many more have played in the tournament. The exposure given to hockey players by the JNHT Society Tournaments has allowed many of them make it to the Indian National Hockey Team, Asian Games, Commonwealth Games and the Olympics. This includes the recent bronze victory of the Indian National Hockey Team's Captain, Manpreet Singh, who has played the Junior and Senior Nehru Hockey Tournaments before getting into the Indian National Hockey Team.

Srilu Bhupal Ji; Chairperson, Editorial Committee launched the coffee table book of the Gooncha 57th Nehru Senior Hockey Tournament. On this occasion, Subhash Kapur, President JNHT Society (Chairman, Steelbird HiTech Ltd); Yash Bharwani, Vice Chairman, Organising Committee and Kukoo Walia, Secretary General of JNHT Society, paid rich tributes in memory of the late I.M. Kapur.