Carvalho back, team changed, IOA unaware

More than a week after the suspension of the IHF, with a new selection committee and an ad-hoc committee to oversee...

More than a week after the suspension of the IHF, with a new selection committee and an ad-hoc committee to oversee the functioning of the sport already in place, confusion and controversy remains the order of the day in Indian hockey.

The latest episode is the sudden return to India of coach Joaquim Carvalho, who had been named as an observer for the Sultan Azlan Shah tournament in Malaysia. Carvalho, who was the coach of the Indian team in the four-nation tournament in Australia, has come back without informing the new selection committee about his decision.

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“We got to know only this evening that Carvalho was back and three players from our list have been changed. But I guess all this is just to create a ruckus by vested interests,” Aslam Sher Khan, the chairman of selectors, told The Indian Express.

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But Carvalho said he had always planned to skip the Azlan Shah event. “I’d already told Mr (KPS) Gill that I wanted to come back after Australia,” Carvalho he said.

That Carvalho still considers Gill the deciding authority is clear from the fact that the players in Malaysia are not the same as in the final team list cleared by the Indian Olympic Association. In fact, three players from the IOA list have returned with no one in the association or the selection committee being aware of the development.

Tushar Khandekar, Samir Baxla, and Baljeet Singh were supposed to be in Kuala Lumpur, but they are back in the country, with Adrian

D’Souza, Birender Lakra and VR Raghunath taking their place. Two of these three players were in the initial squad for the tournament picked by the IHF.

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Ajitpal Singh, a member of the new selection committee, said that the changes in the initial IHF list were made after suggestions from Ric Charlesworth. “Ric wanted a couple of experienced strikers and an experienced goalkeeper. So we added the three names. But now the whole purpose has been defeated,” he said.

Sources said the IOA ad-hoc committee was unaware of any developments in Malaysia till late in the day. Even chief coach AK Bansal, who reached Malaysia on Tuesday, said he had no idea about the changes. “The boys from Australia were already here when we reached and the rest had already left for India,” he said from Ipoh, where the tournament is to be held.

Asked to comment on the development, Ramesh Parmeshwaran, who was with the team in Australia and is now the manager in Malaysia, said they were going by the initial squad given to them by Gill, and were not aware of any other list.

So, if Gill is calling the shots, does the IOA have any say? No one from the association was available for comment.