Women hockey manager, coach summoned for miscalculation fiasco

NEW DELHI: Indian contingent Chef de Mission Bhubneswar Kalita summoned the team manager and the coach of women’s hockey team on Sunday to explain how the miscalculation blunder against South Africa had happened which had cost the home side a semifinal spot in the Commonwealth Games.

Kalita said he will find out from the coach and manager what had actually happened in India’s last group match yesterday and will go forward after that.

“I have already summoned the team manager and coach. We have to see what had happened. I will find out what had happened in the match and then will get back to you,” Kalita said when asked about the shocking incident.

But asked what was the morale of the players after the debacle, he said, “They are upbeat and they are looking for improvement in their performance.”

After India beat South Africa 3-1 yesterday, coach Sandeep Somesh and captain Surinder Kaur gave a shocker when they said manager Rupa Sahni told them that they need to win with a seven goal margin to qualify for semi final when it was actually four.

Kalita was also not forthcoming in another controversial issue – that of reported abuse of Indian archery team coach Limba Ram by an English team official.

“Limba has not told about this (the incident). May be since he is a nice person he does not want to take up the matter. I will speak to him and take action if anything like that had happened,” said Kalita.

Asked repeatedly if he was aware of abuse of Limba by an English official, Kalita said, “He (Limba) has not told me about it.”

He also said that he was not aware of any Indian official saying after Ashish Kumar won a silver and bronze that the country could have done better.

Kalita said with more gold medals expected to come from some disciplines, including boxing, India is on target to finish second in the overall tally.

“We are doing very well, especially in shooting, wrestling and weightlifting. We have even won a couple of medals each in athletics and gymnastics. We are now in second position in medal tally and we are looking to maintain it. We are expecting more gold medals, especially from boxing,” he said.

“We have already gone past the 2006 Melbourne total tally of 52 medals and 22 gold on the sixth day (of Commonwealth Games). We will surpass the 30 gold we won in 2002 Manchester Games,” he said.