India has no junior team, so will miss hockey tournament in Singapore

UTHRA G CHATURVEDI

A TOTAL collapse of the junior circuit of domes tic hockey means India will not participate in the June 17-26 under-18 Asia Cup tournament in Singapore. Several delays in the appointment of the coaching staff and selectors, and the absence of a structured system means that not only does the national game not have an under-18 squad, but also that there is no base for the formation and development of under21 teams.

Hockey India (HI) Executive Director Anupam Ghulati said missing the Singapore tournament — an event that has in the past seen the emergence of top India players like Jugraj Singh, Rajpal Singh and Tu shar Khandker — is “no big deal”.

“It isn’t something to get worked up about. We will select a team soon and arrange for their training,” Ghulati said.

HI secretary general Narinder Batra said the agegroup competition had faded away because there was no official to keep it alive. “While the national team coaches are cleared by the sports ministry, clearance for all other agegroup coaching panels and support staff comes at the level of the Sports Authority of India (SAI). For a long time, the post of DG, SAI was vacant,” Batra said.
He added, “Now that we have one, we have forwarded our recommendations for the panel of coaches to him. Hopefully things will be finalised by the end of this week.” Once the staff is in place, the selection process will start, Batra said.

Pargat Singh, chairman of HI’s technical committee and a former India captain, said he did not know India had been invited for the tournament, and blamed “officials” for the situation.

“It is unfortunate but that’s how it is,” Pargat said. “I got to know only today that we did receive an invitation for the event. We have no system in place and the officials who should be looking after such things are busy with their own games.” Organisers of the Asia Cup said they had been told India had no money to send a team to Singapore.

“A n invitation was sent to them but we never got any response. Later we were informed by the Asian Hockey Federation, under whose aegis the tournament takes place, that India has decided not to field a team because they cannot afford to. We have had no official communique from Hockey India directly,” said an official of the Singapore Hockey Federation. Besides hosts Singapore, Pakistan, Korea, Malaysia, China, Chinese Ta ipei, Sri Lanka, Kazakhstan and Indonesia will participate in the tournament.