Superintendent of Police and Assistant Director of Police Training School at Kundasale A.H.M. Nazeem is one of the finest all-round Sportsmen produced by St. Sylvesters College, Kandy, who represented Sri Lanka with distinction at hockey.
Soft spoken Nazeem played cricket, soccer, hockey and also participated in athletics and boxing for his school and excelled in all. The school did not have rugby during his time, and he would have played this game too.
Starting from cricket, he played for his school for four years ended by captaining the school cricket team in 1978. Those were the days when there was no tournament matches and it was all friendly and traditional matches which was around 7 to 8 matches for a season in all.
Thousand runs or 100 wickets in a season was never heard of and to achieve these miles one has to reel off a century in every match or get a haul of 10 wickets or more in every match.
Nazeem was an attacking batsman who scored over 500 runs per season and in his final year he scored centuries against Isipathana College, Dharmaraja College and Ibbagamuwa Central College and also scored 5 half centuries. His medium pacers brought him a haul of 60 wickets displaying consistency with both bat and the ball. He also played cricket for the Police team.
At soccer he was a centre forward and captained the school in 1978 and also turned up for the Police team when time permitted as he was engrossed in another sport which was his forte.
It was at hockey that Nazeem exuded his brilliance as he captained the school as a full back. While still at school he played for the Kandy District team at the Senior Hockey Nationals.
Joining the Police force he continued his hockey in a big way and represented the country for 8 years playing against top nations which toured this country.
He also played in the Asia Cup Hockey Championship and toured many countries. His highest representation was playing for Sri Lanka in the Asian Games.
He played hockey for 17 years and retired from the game when he felt that he has had enough and should give way to the youngsters. At hockey he also captained the Kandy District and the State Services hockey team, in 1994 and led the side to win the all island Mayors Cup hockey championship. He led the Police team which won the Moore Shield and the Andriesz Shield also the all island sevens hockey tournament conducted by the Matale Hockey Association.
He recalled that one year at the senior hockey nationals the Colombo Hockey Association had a crack side with no less than nine national players doing service for them and they went out favourites to win the championship title against State Services which had a more or less scratch side. But the State Services put up a fine display to defeat the star studded Colombo team 4 -2 to win the title. Nazeem manning the last line of defence put up an attacking display to score 2 of these goals.
An incident he recalled was playing for the Police team in a tournament abroad, one of the umpires blundered and the hockey fanatics of that country went berserk throwing missiles and all sorts of missiles into the field and they had to scamper for safety and a riot squad arrived in the grounds to quell the riots before it got out of hand. They were escorted to the hotel and no one was injured.
He introduced hockey to Seetha Devi BV, Kandy before M.A.M. Ahroof took.
He played inter-divisional rugby for the Police and also cricket in the Donovan Andree Shield tournament and in one season took 50 wickets.
He also coached the State Services women's hockey team and the Police women's hockey team.
Some of his contemporaries at hockey were Malcolm Perera, Anton Perera, Dr. R. Mahendra, M.Ayub, Mansur Jhan, who went on to represent the country. He boxed for the College, was a member of the cadet platoon and the school western band.
Article by- S.M. Jiffrey Abdeen, Kandy Sports Corrt
