Harendra speaks up for Rajpal

M.S.Unnikrishnan

Tribune News Service

The Indian hockey team’s captaincy issue became a shut and closed issue when chief national coach Harendra Singh spoke up for Rajpal Singh, asserting that it was the job of the concerned people to select the captain, and not for the team or former players to decide.

He said picking the team and selecting the captain was the prerogative of the selectors, the Government nominees and Hockey India, as they had a “definite role to play”. And once the concerned authorities did their job, it was the duty of the team and the team management to fall in line and carry on with the preparation of the team for the Hero Honda World Cup, to be held at the Dhyan Chand National Stadium here from February 28 to March 13.

Harendra Singh and Hockey India adviser Anupam Gulati had an interactive session with the media here today, and the chief national coach was obviously questioned on the captaincy issue. But Harender said the captaincy issue was done with as Rajpal was made captain by the selectors and every player in the team had to accept him as the leader. Harendra said seniority was not an absolute criterion to become the Indian captain, as captaincy demanded many other qualities in a player.

“Sachin Tendulkar is a great player and a former captain. But he now plays under a junior captain”, Harendra noted. He also took a dig at some of the former players who were rooting for Prabhjot Singh as the captain. “Dhanraj Pillay played in four Olympics, but he played under different captains. Never once he led the country in the Olympics”, Harender said.

With the media still being kept out of the National Stadium and the Indian team continuing to practise “under camera”, Anupam Gulati said the Sports Authority of India (SAI) had kept the media out due to “security reasons” though Hockey India was trying to persuade the SAI to allow the media to have interaction with the team at a certain interval.

“It’s a security call, but we have requested the SAI to let in the media”, informed Gulati. Harendra said the team were employing certain strategies, which might as well be kept under wraps, instead of exposing them before the media.

Meanwhile, the International Hockey Federation (FIH) announced eight teams for the World Cup through its publicity agents here today, though the Indian team were missing from the list. The teams announced included Pakistan, Korea, Argentina, South Africa, Australia, England, Netherlands and Germany.

The 18-member Pakistan team:

To be captained by Zeeshan Ashraf, consists of Salman Akbar (GK), Sohail Abbas, Sajjad Anwar, Muhammad Imran, Waseem Ahmed, Muhammad Irfan, Muhammad Rashid, Fareed Ahmed, Muhammad Rizwan, Abdul Haseem Khan, Muhammad Zubair, Nasir Ahmed (GK), Akhtar Ali, Syed Abbas Haider Bilgrami, Rehan Butt, Muhammad Umar Bhutta and Shakeel Abbasi.