Mumtaz hopes to script a story of greens to gold
LUCKNOW: The hopes of the Indian women’s junior hockey team at the World Cup in South Africa will depend a lot on goals from Mumtaz Khan, an 18-yearold Lucknow player who is another Indian sporting story of ‘catch ’em young by chance’.
One of seven daughters of a roadside vegetable vendor in Lucknow’s Topkhana Bazaar, the young Mumtaz took up hockey almost by accident. The young girl was running at the KD Singh ‘Babu’ Stadium in 2014 when a hockey coaching couple, impressed by her speed, virtually dragged her to play the game.
The girl refused on the first day but was persuaded to pick up the hockey stick the next day with encouragement from her older sister Farah. It has been a rapid rise after the coaches Rashid Siddiqui and his wife Neelam got her admission in the hockey hostel there.
“It changed my life. Madam and her husband compelled me to continue playing, they even filled my form for admission in the hockey hostel (in 2014),” recalled Mumtaz.
Mumtaz, who scored 10 goals to help India win silver at the Buenos Aires Youth Olympics in 2018, became so good she made it to the junior India camp the next year. A bronze with the girls’ U-18 Asia Cup in 2016, silver at a six-nation event in 2018 and gold at the 2020 Cantor Fitzgerald U-21 International FourNations tournament have followed. A major setback came in 2019, during a junior India tour of Ireland. “While tackling between the goalposts, I twisted my right knee. It forced me into rehabilitation for almost seven months. I had lost hope but Hockey India took care of me in Bengaluru,” Mumtaz said.
Life is still a struggle though for her family of 10. Everytime she returns from camps and tournaments, Mumtaz takes turn in selling vegetables, though her focus is on the tournament starting on December 5.
“My parents did everything for me to become a hockey player. Now, it’s my turn to give them back some pride. I will try to help the team finish on the podium because a medal around my neck will be the biggest gift to my parents.”
Her father Hafeez is delighted. “It’s all God’s grace and Mumtaz’s hard work. I am really proud of her,” he said.