Open Letter to Olympian Ashok Kumar

Dear legend,

You are hockey’s flag bearer. You keep hockey close to heart. Hockey is your passion, profession and obsession. You visit so many schools and colleges as hockey ambassador and always hog around grounds – like no other former Olympians.

You were a ‘young Turk’ when playing and assumed an ‘Young Angry Man’ image later on. You resigned as selector in protest against KPS Gill when he sacked ‘Super Six’ players and coach (MK Kaushik) of the 1998 gold winning team. You are the only one from that Selection Committee to tender resignation on moral grounds.

Not only that. You were in the forefront of organizing Olympians’ Protest March in Delhi last year against KPS Gill.

You took many personal risks to make that protest happen.

That’s past. What’s present, dear legend?

The hockey world now knows you put so many players — who were never even in the junior or development side camps before — straightaway into the senior camp, recently.

I am not saying, as a selector, you have no right — or incompetent — to do this. I am also not against your nephew in the list.

When Dhyan Chand’s son can become Ashok Kumar, why not your kin became another Ashok Kumar? This possibility is always there. If there is a talent whether it is your nephew or your foe’s, he deserved to be in the team.

But the question is, if these players are so talented, why are we not talking about them like we do in case of Diwakar Ram, Ranjeet Singh and other colts on the block. Where were these players whom you are propping up now?

If those players are so gifted that they merit direct entry into the senior camp, you could have formed a Bhopal IX or MP IX, whatever the case, and fielded them in any Grade I tournament. If this team performed well, they would have automatically shone, landed in leading domestic teams, got handsome jobs. Nothing of that sort happened so far.

These Madhya Pradesh players are in the probables list because you happened to work there. My simple question is, are you national selector or regional?

You did not bring one talent outside MP. You can’t. Because, you are victim of the same system which you were fighting against all along.

I remember you gave two reasons for quitting as a selector in 1998. Firstly, why to sack players before National Championship was held. Secondly, Gill was rude, he did not inform senior players in advance before sacking them.

Ten years down the line, what’s happening when you are in the seat of power. Two stalwarts, Dilip Tirkey – he is world’s most capped player – and Ignace Tirkey, recent captain, are left out. They come to know this thro’ next day’s newspaper. Did any one of you, Selectors or ad-hoc Committee members, talk to them? You are sinning as were your predecessors.

How can dear Ashok, you all select probables without National Championship held, selectors not witnessing recent domestic tournaments. The season has just only started. Is it the way of rebuilding hockey? Why hurry for propables? What tournaments are lined up now?

When your father was selected directly for the 1932 Olympics, while others underwent trials, he did not like the favour. He wrote in ‘Goal’ ‘injustice to my peers’.

That spirit now lies only in his book.

Writing against you, my idol, pains me. For, its your game in the first place attracted a lab-hardened Scientist like me to hockey. But I am helpless. You perhaps let me down.