Striker, Stopper

Striker is the story of a young football player, Prasoon Joshi, whose father, once a top scorer in the Calcutta League, is completely sidelined after being accused by the club of deliberately throwing the winning goal. As a young player struggling to make his mark, Prasoon not only has to battle the ruthless exploitation of the football clubs, his family’s straitened financial circumstances, and his own development as a player, but he has also to exorcise his father’s ghosts. Stopper, on the other hand, is the story of the much older Kamal Guha, a veteran player with an eclectic record, now playing the final game of his career… Both novellas brilliantly capture the heady highs, and the crushing lows, the heroism – and the ignominy – of sport. However, it is always the game, and the action on the field, that is the real hero of Moti Nandy’s writing.