Hockey India needs to do lot of explaining

Have you ever heard of a fitness man turning into manager?

How can a person hired for fitness purpose be made manager? Can anyone in Hockey India, which now governs hockey in the country, explain this? If they can explain this to the satisfaction of those who know hockey, it will nice.

I said to myself, oh god, when I saw Indian fitness expert David John sitting on the bench at Busselton – where India played first Australia and then the ill-fated Pakistan.

A bit of doubt whether he is really manager was cleared with the official documents made available to me at the small stadium office in Busselton hockey club stadium.

How can country depute its fitness man to a largely technical and administrative job such as Manager?
This shows poorly of Hockey India.

AB Subbaiah was the manager for the Women’s team which came here. Why not somebody who knows hockey’s technical matters appointed for men?
Obviously because, Hockey India’s CEO is here, a lady cannot function as Manager for men’s match, though in all practical purpose she is doing it off the field, staying and travelling with the team.

I really at loss to understand why a CEO should be doing a normal job on tour, but that is a subject we will leave it for time being.

Now, in the light of Indian players being suspended for Friday Busselton Burst, what role could a fitness man have played to diffuse the situation on the field, and then how effectively he could have argued our case in the Tournament Director’s meeting?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Only manager is authorised to enter the field for many purposes. That’s why world over competent, mature, technical people are put in for the job.
Even many times the chief coach sits in the stands with video man or some other technical people, pass on the tips to Manager on the bench.
On the other hand Pakistan has put well-known Olympian Kwaja Junaid at the Manager ‘s mantle, he attends all technical meeting and being suave, experienced, and veteran, he could have certainly put up his case with solid commonsense.

Even otherwise his handling of the team needs to e be understood. After the violent incident, he packed his team for a walk out. A job actually India should have done, instead one of our players was pleading with Pakistan not to leave the ground, even as our manager was grounded to the bench.

Within 10 minutes after the walkout, Pakistan team obliged the organizers to return and shake hands with other team, and go back without the game resumed.

This sequence of walkout and return is a master stroke, only an expert such as Kwaja can master. This gave at the outset an impression of ‘victim’ with loaded psychological advantage to his team in boardroom. He was at his best in his crisis management act, interacting with lot of people, having a smiling face, giving out words of wisdom etc. This type of PR is expected of him, and he did it to his best.

Our manager at that point of time was unseen.

All these happened even as Pak fitness man was looking after injured Rasool on the field, while oour fitness man was groping in dark with the new role of Manager.

I have not seen him interacting with the staff of other team or with the Technical bench, Tournament Director when all the hell broke out on Friday.

Poor fellow, he was doing some other’s job, and got suspended for that generosity, and malfeance.

Hockey India needs to do lot of explaining to the nation for the shame of more players suspended from its side.

The point here is, an Indian player injures the other in the course of the match, the other side come and attack him, even after the umpire found the Indian player wrong and punished him with a penalty corner award. The Indian was taken to hospital and then he is suspended!! So, he got punishment from players and officials!!!

Are there competent people out here in the Indian camp to protect the team and safeguard its interest?

Note: This was the subject matter we discussed while returning from Busselton after watching the Friday match. We had enough joke that time, obviously we were not expecting tough days for him