Sardar, Sandeep asked to attend HI meeting to sort out mess

BANGALORE/NEW DELHI: Sardar Singh and Sandeep Singh may be consigned to the fringes if Hockey India pays careful attention to the saner voices in the team think-tank and initiates stringent action against the two for having abruptly quit the national camp in Bangalore on Tuesday.

HI secretary Narinder Batra said it was a serious breach of discipline which needed to be taken to its logical end. A meeting of the disciplinary committee, headed by Pargat Singh, will be held on August 27 to discuss the issue where the players too will be provided with an opportunity to present their case. “We have asked them to be in New Delhi so that their problems could be heard too. We would like to know why they are repeatedly doing this. Whether they want to make use of this opportunity or not is entirely their call,” he said.

Batra’s statement came soon after camp co-ordinator SS Grewal briefed him about the happenings on Monday and recommended strong action against the two players.

On Monday, Sardar and Sandeep met Grewal and chief coach Michael Nobbs and requested them that they be relieved as they were ‘mentally unprepared’ to play the game. Sardar even told Grewal that he was quitting hockey.

With just four days to go for India’s departure for the Asian Champions Trophy in Ordos, China, the move threw the team’s preparations into disorder. And, with both Sandeep and Sardar being pastmasters at leaving the national team in the lurch, it had the think-tank fuming and studying extreme options. “Discipline is paramount and the Indian team has no place for those who are indisciplined,” Grewal told TOI. “What Sardar and Sandeep did cannot be pardoned. We don’t want them back in the team.”

Nobbs was equally assertive. “They have no place in the team for the foreseeable future. The two players signed a document, pledging that they wouldn’t do this to the team, Hockey India or me. I am disappointed with what they have done. I could never trust what they say in the future.”

Besides Pargat, members of the players’ representatives in Hockey India, Rajnish Mishra and Mukesh Kumar, Nobbs and two government observers on HI selection committee Harvinder Singh and Dilip Tirkey are likely be present at the meeting.

Batra also blamed Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) for Tuesday’s happenings. “There are reports that the IHF is playing all these games from behind. If this continues we will not be able to qualify for the Olympics which the IHF wants,” Batra was quoted as saying by agencies.

Nobbs said the turn of events had strengthened his resolve to focus more on the youth. “The young kids are the future and the quicker we develop them the quicker India moves ahead. Now the focus will be on youth. No matter what the result is in China, we will promote the youth,” he said.