Indian team for the Azlan Shah Cup announced. Senior most player in the team Arjun Halappa will lead the Indian challenge in the Azlan Shah Cup where Indian teams had reached the finals in the last three years.
The team:
Bharat Chetri, Adrian D’Souza, Diwakar Ram, Dhananjay Mahadik, Rupinder Pal Singh, Arjun Halappa, Vikram Pillay, Vikas Pillay, Vikas Sharma, Gurbaj Singh, Ravi Pal Singh, Danish Mujtaba, Shivendra Singh, SV Sunil, Mandeep Antil, Sarvanjit Singh, Roshan Minz, Baljit Singh Chandi.
Standbyes:
PR Sreejesh, William Xalxo, Gurjinder Singh, Birendra Lakra Jr.,Pritinder Singh, Bikas Topno
Shocked to see Chandi in the team. He is the best at losing possession and mis-trapping. We have gone backwards by 2-3 years with this squad and the choice of Harendra as coach.
Indian Hockey administrators are the laughing stock of the world. It is lamentable- a country with such great resources, riches, huge corporate sponsors, and such potential has these clowns administering our national sport. Firing Coach Jose Brasa, who by sheer dint of hard work and perseverance, brought a fresh perspective, and finally put India back on the road to being world class again. What do the clowns do- they go and fire him- that too in an Olympic qualifying period. Now we go back to the drawing board-with whom- Harendra Singh. People, he didn’t work before- thats why we brought in a technical person of Brasa’s stature who understands the European and Australian game. We were steadily making progress and the Asian games may have been a small hiccup, but progress it was- compared to where we were before Brasa came on board. The so-called ‘well wishers’ said his ‘record’ was poor. “Poor”? He brought India back into the Top 10 in the world, we steadily, consistently and comprehensively beat Pakistan, and even teams like England (CWG). Azlan Shah tournament is not that important, but can be used for blooding new talent. India need to stick with one coach- so the team can have some consistency in training and selection. Question is- will the clowns governing our national sport ever let it happen. We need more sportspersons like Pargat and Viren Rasquinha, maybe Dhranraj Pillai to step forward and take the reins. O Indian Hockey- we need help- maybe from outside- for the enemy is within.