No playing for states

The concept of helping the have-nots is alien to the Services Sports Control Board (SSCB). Spoilt for choice while selecting teams for domestic events, institutional teams like Railways usually allow surplus players to represent their states. This way they give a chance to the remaining players to be among matches.

But this year, SSCB has refused to give its players no-objection certificates to represent their respective states at the National Hockey Championships.

The move has not gone down well with quite a few state teams and Manipur and Jharkhand have expressed serious concerns over the move. “Why deny a player the chance to represent his state in the nationals?” questioned an official.

But HI officials are not willing to get into the debate, for now.