Selectors Saga: Enlarge the scope, not the numbers

Hockey India has formed a ten member Selection committee. So far these committees used to be smaller in size, four or five.

Therefore it is pertinent to ask why do we need ten people to select a team of 18 or 20?

Will each selector select two players?

Will the opinion of so many people be same as to select a best team?

This will be possible only if most of them would shake their heads to one or two prominent heads among them – or to the Federation.

Also, worthwhile to ask here is, would Hockey India have enlarged the numbers to this extent, as it has done now, if it have to pay for their services?

Before going into these, let us see the composition of the committee.

Everyone of them is an acclaimed former player. Right from the 1968 Olympic bronze medalist Col. Balbir Singh to 2002 CWG goldie Sita Mehta are there.

This way the selectors’ collective playing career spans over four decades. We can believe they carry with them rich experience, though some of them ‘carried their experience’ too often and too long, having done the ‘noble job’ from time to time.

Its first time for Harpreet Singh, Manohar Topno, Rekha, Thoiba Singh, AB Subbaiah, Anil Aldrin etc. They are all relative young compared to many others who did the same in the past. This is a fresh looking team, no doubt about this. Except Col. Balbir and Rekha everyone of them have had their playing career on synthetic turf. This entitles them better understanding of the technical side of the game than those who spent their life on natural grass.

Let us welcome the fresh lot in their new role.

However, it is not out place to ask here that how these new faces who haven’t even selected a district team in the past, are straightway catapulted to the national selection?

In India nobody asks question against players, so it be.

The ideal way would be to groom players from district to state to national level. This process is a must.

There are umpires, administrators, organizers of tournaments, Institutional brains, who are involved in various aspects of team selection — and the selection process should only be done by the players is a fancy, an idea which can sell only with media. (For example, is there anyone more competent to select age-group talent and teams than Mezharban Patel, the great ‘Bawa Saheb’ of Bombay)?

Normally, Selection Committees of hockey used to be categorywise – senior, junior—and gender wise.

Now the present committee has seven men and three women.

Ever since Hockey India came into being, the concept of genderwise committee has been done away with. Perhaps they thought once men and women associations are merged, why to have a separate committees for men and women?

We can’t look for any examples in the rest of hockey world for this, simply because the concept of Selection Committee does not exist elsewhere, having been outdated!

It is felt in some quarters it is a crude form of ‘merger’, stretching the merger concept too much, the separate committees for men and women are must etc.

We don’t deal this issue here, as we feel the concept of ‘Selection Committee’ is a stone age one. Selecting team is prerogative of chief coach alone.

However, as India is obsessed with this (read bureaucracy), it is prudent to see how the selectors can serve the cause better rather than keep on condemning the concept.

Hockey India must have done some homework, or something big in their mind before enlarging the size of the committee, we hope so. Otherwise, there was no reason to do this, even election is not around the corner to accommodate so many!

The size of ten is unwieldy, unnecessary unless its scope is enlarged.

Assembling all the ten people for two days to witness selection trials is in itself going to be a complex exercise, hope it is not needed if different approach is adopted.

It is better to assign targeted selection – in schools, in colleges, in academies, during major tournaments etc — to each or select group consisting of two or three.

And make a mechanism by which these selectors are continuously on job, look for talents in each category or region, and feed centrally.

India has as of now hardly 40 players and 10 coaches.

Except a couple of coaches and about ten players, others are medium category. There is no much scope to select others, we have to cycle the players and coaches, selectors won’t have much role here.

Further, most of the talent feeder channels are neither there nor monitored.

Therefore, we don’t need ten selectors to select 16 players.

However, Pargat Singh used many former players in his capacity as Director of Sports, Punjab, to oversee and advise many rural centres, academies etc in Punjab.

If Pargat is now involved in the present ‘explosion of population’ of selectors, and there is more role to be assigned to selectors as we have seen in his Punjab Model, we will be happy and wait for things to happen accordingly. But, as of now we are not sure whose brain wave is behind the explosion.

But, let us be positive.