Difficult to change things in IHF

Dhanraj Pillay, concerned about the present hockey scenario in the country, blasted the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) for ‘‘poor ...

Dhanraj Pillay, concerned about the present hockey scenario in the country, blasted the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) for ‘‘poor team selection” and put it as the reason for the loss against Pakistan in the ongoing six-match Test series.

The mercurial forward also advocated that it was the duty of the captain to fight for the inclusion of best players in the team. Talking to The Indian Express he said, “I read Mr Gill saying that the present team was selected on the basis of fitness and merit of the players during the Premier Hockey League (PHL). But it does not seem so from the performance of the players. I think that ‘politics’ seems to have played a major role in team selections.”

He was critical of ignoring senior players from the present team and said that games against Pakistan should not be taken lightly because everybody wants to see exciting matches. ‘‘Even now when I am not in the team, I feel very annoyed when the team loses to Pakistan. It becomes very difficult for me to see my country losing against the arch-rivals. Hockey is going downward at a time when some of the major tournaments are round the corner,” he said.

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The four-time Olympian minced no words in blaming skipper Dilip Tirkey for not fighting for the cause of the players. “He is a good player but I feel that as a captain he follows the IHF dictum too much. What is surprising is that while former stalwarts want seniors like Baljeet Singh Dhillon and Baljit Singh Saini to be included in the team, the captain prefers to keep mum. When I was at the helm of affairs I used to fight for the players so as to ensure that the best team represents the county. I never gave a second thought whether that could annoy people in the IHF.”

The seasoned player lamented that “nothing positive” in hockey can take place so long as the structure of the IHF remained the same. “IHF ki jo banawat hai, usme kuchh nahin ho sakta hai.”

“The cream of the country was playing in the PHL and it was such a good platform for team selection but some of the best players did not get a place in the team,” he quipped.

After the Athens Olympics, he said, the standard of the game has gone down drastically. ‘‘We could have fared better but the foreign coach goofed it up,” he said.