In limelight for wrong reasons

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The Telegraph

Stickwork: Gurbox Singh

Hockey is in the limelight again, but this time for all the wrong reasons. And the present episode has evoked comparisons between the hockey players and cricketers.

Why did the Pune fiasco happen? Who was responsible? Whatever the answers, the government’s step-motherly attitude towards hockey and other Olympic sports cannot be denied.

Recently, the women’s hockey team, too, were put in a similar situation when incomplete paperwork saw them being turned away from the airport when they were due to catch a flight for Russia. In my playing days, too, we were victims of such mismanagement.

In this case, where the vehicles turned up late leading to the players missing their flight, the management must take its share of the blame.

But the way our hockey players were harassed at the airport, no cricketer would be ever put through that. I have no doubt in my mind when I say that it is Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar or Sourav Ganguly who would be accorded VVIP treatment in Calcutta, and not Gurbux, Leslie Claudius or Chuni Goswami. Unfortunate, but that’s the way it is.

As appalling was the callousness that nearly cost Baljit Singh his eye. Of the four specialised helmets available to the team, three are lying in Bhopal. So the national team was training with only one helmet when the accident occurred.

In our days, tennis balls were used for training reflexes but maybe on Astroturf, the purpose is better served by golf balls. However, precautions are a must. The fault, in this case, was Romeo James’s. After all, as the goalkeeping coach, it was he who should have ensured that all the helmets were carried to Pune and, if that wasn’t possible, that the goalies wore protective gear.

Not only is a life at stake, but the country, it seems, has lost another talent. Baljit was the current No.1 goalkeeper and I wish he returns from this injury and does the country proud.

Chief coach Jose Brasa is taking the senior men’s side through a style overhaul. Now the talk is of total hockey and a team in which every player can play at every position. That’s all very well, but what I don’t understand is why Brasa and coach Harendra Singh have been saying that the current tour is only a practice tour and that the results do not matter at all.

For me, this is negative thinking. I know that the team is in a transitional phase and that this tour is more about evaluation and analysis than results. But excluding winning from the set of objectives bespeaks a negative mindset. For a team that is poised to make yet another surge for glory, this is a wrong approach.