Indian Hockey Federation, which (mis)rules the national game of India, has yesterday released its 30-member probables list for selecting a team for the double-leg 4-Nation Cup to held in Australia later next month. Coming as it was a month after KL World Cup, the exercise was expected to throw light on the type of roadmap the IHF would set for the future. Since the KL campaign for India ended in disaster, the IHF’s next move was eagerly awaited too. With an Asian Games gold to be defended and a rare chance to be in the company of elite Champions trophy this year, there is an urgent need to set the house in order so that a sound Indian team plays to its potential in these two outings. Has the IHF risen to the occasion? Were its recent decisions laden with genuine crisis management skills? Let us analyse.
The IHF announced a new set of coaches who in turn brought with them a new set of players while retaining eight KL World Cuppers. 1980 Olympics gold medallist Rajinder Singh, who happened to be the coach of the Hobart Junior World Cup, has been promoted along with all three of his Hobart staff – assistant coaches A.E. Brient and Narinder Singh Sodhi and trainer P. Sampath. The list of 30 probables has eight of the 18 KL World Cup players, all youngsters except defender Dilip Tirkey, three new faces, four tried and discarded players and others who are anyway in the reckoning zone.
The processes that have seemingly gone into the whole exercise needs to be studied to understand the dynamics, and also the veracity, of these decisions. Selection Process
Ragavendra Itagi Memorial Tournament held at Bangalore between 6th and 16th of this month has been considered basis for the probables selection. Six selectors — IHF Secretary Jothi Kumaran, retired Sports Authority of India coach Olympian Charles Cornilius, former women’s national coach Ajay Kumar Bansal, Indian Airlines team manager Harendera, international umpire Krishnamurthy, Tamil Nadu’s Gunasekaran (youngest brother of former national coach V. Baskaran) – watched the tournament in order to select the prospective players. The question here is, since when these people — though some are competent enough to do the job — have become selectors? It’s grim reality that the IHF does not have a selection committee of its own. What happened at Bangalore was just a harried arrangement to give the selection a semblance of systematic approach. Most of these so-called selectors were already at Bangalore — Bansal with the Indian Oil team, Gunasekaran with Tamil Nadu team, Krishamurthy was the organizing secretary of the Itagi Cup to quote a few. So, it was just an ad hoc group. How a national team could be selected after watching one Grade I tournament is another point. In the past, probables used to be selected after the Senior and Junior National Championships. Here at Bangalore, only 12 teams took part. This gave scope for adding some players who were not playing at Bangalore. This was skillfully exploited later.
This committee first identified 53 players, then pruned it down to 33. The IHF Secretary then flew to Delhi and submitted the list to the KPS Gill, who is by virtue of the president of the IHF is also the chairman of the selection committee. The irony of the whole thing was that it went on without anyone sure of who will be the chief coach. Of course, separate groups were lobbing for the chief coach with the IHF president.
Gill has unilaterally decided to appoint Rajinder Singh even before the selection process were set in motion with C.R. Kumar as deputy. Reliable sources claim this was the reason why the dejected C.R. Kumar decided to leave the scene. Then at least Rajinder should have been sent to Bangalore to see for himself the prospective players, but it was not done. But the new appointee has sufficiently apprised Gill of his choice of players, thereby rendering the selection process a disjointed effort.
Rajinder was shown the 33 probables list on 19th April during a meeting that took place in Gill’s residence. Besides the IHF President and secretary, its treasurer JN Tyagi were present. Gill, who is already all hears for the Rajinder’s choices, and Rajinder removed about a dozen names in the submitted list and added their own. Selection by the twosome who did not witness selection tournament! Prominent players removed included Thirumal Valavan, Bipin Fernandes and Arjun Halappa. Despite Delhi being the hottest region of the country, it was decided to have the camp here as it is Rajinder’s hometown.