LUDHIANA, Jan 18: The so-called resting of six members of the Asian Games gold medal winning Indian hockey team, including skipper Dhanraj Pillay and Mukesh Kumar, has drawn considerable flak from most of the past and present hockey stars of the country, who had gathered in Kila Raipur near here to attend Indian star Baljit Singh Dhillon's marriage yesterday.``It is nothing but a game of musical chairs and will never help in promotion of sports culture in the country,'' was the feeling one got after talking to them.``The way the Indian Hockey Federation has treated the Asian Games heroes like Dhanraj Pillay, Ashish Balal, Mukesh and Subbiah, is totally unjustified. And no sport lover will agree with the so-called excuse that it is a part of the strategy adopted by IHF to prepare the team for 2000 Olympic Games,'' remarked Olympian Balbir Singh, a member of Indian hockey squad which had won the last gold medal in Asian Games 32 years back. Putting a question mark on the working of IHF, the former Olympian remarked,``Is it the way IHF treats and rewards the winners, including coach M.M.Kaushik who had proved his worth? I am not against the IHF's decision to prepare a second-string team but I feel that the presence of such experienced players would have helped to boost morale of the new team''.Coming down heavily on IHF, Olympian Harpreet Singh remarked,``It is really pathetic. Politics has led IHF to take this unexpected step. This can badly affect the credibility of federation among its own players''.Former Indian captain and coach Pargat Singh, who was also sacked by IHF last year, summed it up by saying that IHF has no set of policies as even after working with them as a player and coach he had never been in a position to understand the federation. Others like Jagdev Singh, Hardeep Singh Grewal, Jagdeep Singh also described it untimely but G.S.Bhangru, chief coach of the women's team said, ``If there are sincere intentions behind all this then it is good, but if the players were deliberately made to rest then it is unfair''.Chandra Shekhar, senior vice president of IHF, on the other hand said that the players have only been rested and they will be considered for future selection. ``We cannot over expose these players. We are looking beyond this Indo-Pak series".
