Players await HI clearance

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

The five players — Arjun Halappa, Adrian D’Souza, Sandeep Singh, Sardar Singh and Prabhjot Singh — who deserted the National hockey camp in progress at the SAI South Centre here, to attend a media launch of the World Series Hockey (WSH) on Thursday and returned only on Friday night, were barred from taking the field for practice on Saturday morning.

Camp coordinator and a senior Hockey India official S.S. Grewal clarified that there was no word from either HI officials or SAI officials from New Delhi and until then he had no authority to take them in.

SAI wants to go easy on the five senior players while HI’s Development Committee chairman Pargat Singh, a former India captain and Olympian, is in favour of ‘banning’ the five players on disciplinary grounds. “We may not qualify for the London Olympics… but we will have a good team for the 2016 Olympic Games,” feels Pargat.

But with ‘no word’ emerging either from SAI or HI and with the camp winding off for the day after the morning session and a day-off on Sunday, any possible word on this issue further will only be on Monday. The players, on their part preferred to remain indoors. “We will see what happens on Monday,” said one of them.

Monday is also the day earmarked for the merger of the two factions — HI and Indian Hockey Federation (IHF).