Actually, India was playing Pakistan on home soil in Delhi and people had paid up to Rs 1,000 for a hundred-rupee ticket. I don’t blame the people.

• How did your association treat you?

The players were always with me; they knew I was not at fault. About the officials, I don’t want to say anything.

• You became the fall guy who could be blamed for everything. Frankly, a goalkeeper comes into play only after the defence has failed. For all those seven goals, somebody got past our entire defence. Our defence crumbled that day.

There was some problem in the defence. In the morning they announced one team, and in the afternoon a different team played. A very good friend, Rajinder Singh, was a full-back. Unfortunately, he had a very bad knee that day and couldn’t play well. There were a lot of problems. But the whole team played badly. Just eight days later, however, we went and beat Pakistan.

• So you could have done better if you’d all been relaxed rather than charged up like that.

Of course.

• I see that you don’t hold very much against your defenders who let you down that day. Rajinder Singh figures in Chak De India.

No. Rajinder is a very good friend of mine. It happens. It’s not his mistake. It’s the mistake of the team management. They played him despite his injury. Everybody knew it. How could they have overlooked such a big mistake.

... contd.