Winger Rajpal Singh, who is at Perth with the training Indian team, indicated his early return and also not to take part in the Chile Olympic Qualifier.
Speaking to Shailesh Chaturvedi in Sahara Samay television channel, Rajpal Singh said he would not play in the Qualifier and had decided to return India as early as possible. On asked by Chaturvedi on the reasons for the sudden decision, Rajpal simply said that he did not come here to waste time but to play, practice but could not do much. He refused to elaborate further. He also said that he did not have any problem with coach Joaquim Carvalho.
Rajpal Singh, who led Chandigarh Dynamos to the recently concluded Premier Hockey League final, said in the same phone-in interview that for him isat (respect) is more important than career. He was replying to a question whether this decision would not spoil his career. In this connection, he just added: “there is some one above us who decides everybody’s career’.
He also clarified that he is yet to convey the decision to coach. “I will inform him soon” he said. This gives some hope the issue might well be settled there itself.
Rajpal Singh has been in form and has scored vital goals in the last fortnight’s Belgium Test Series in Chennai, was adjudged ‘Player of the Test’ for those feats.
Rajpal Singh is member of gold winning 2001 Junior World Cup team and made his international senior debut much later, four years after that.
There is also another bad news. Medio Sardara Singh sustained an injury and is almost ruled out for the Chile event.