Chopping & changing but where’s the logic?

In all three recent tournaments, the selection policy of the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) has been whimsical and their ‘experimenting’ has backfired big time. The main playmaker of the team Dhanraj Pillay was dropped on ‘‘fitness’’ grounds, though the real issue was the star player’s bad relations with the coaches: chief coach Rajinder Singh and his deputy Baldev Singh who, incidentally, was fired before the Australian tour. Pillay was not considered for Canberra, despite him announcing his fitness.

For the tour, two other seniors — Baljit Singh Saini and Baljit Singh Dhillon were dropped without any clear reason, and six youngsters were picked. Incidentally, three of them are new faces — Raju, Jatinder Pal Singh and Ajit Pal Singh — with no international experience and no justifiable performance at the domestic level.

Former Indian captain Ashok Kumar, speaking to The Indian Express, criticised the continuous axing of players, saying it has unsettled the team and that is the prime reason for the lacklustre display. Kumar says, ‘‘It takes time for players to adjust to each other. Dhillon and Dhanraj were dropped suddenly, and that must have disturbed the combination with other players and their replacements cannot start performing so soon. Experiments with youngsters should have been tried two years ago and not so close to the Olympics.’’

Kumar also points out that the IHF should drop the practice of changing players so frequently before major tournaments: ‘‘One or two places are always up for grabs but we have seen so many changes since the Afro-Asian Games, when players were dropped.’’

Another former Indian star Mervyn Fernandes echoes the sentiment, saying, ‘‘Building understanding among players is an important factor. Our penalty corner defending has suffered mainly after Pillay was dropped and Jugraj Singh was injured. There is a certain bonding between the goalkeeper, the charger and other defenders while defending a penalty corner.’’

Almost to support Fernandes’s statement, India have conceded a host of PC goals this season. In the pool match of the four-nation tournament, Australia scored two goals out of their five through PCs. In the Olympic qualifiers, India conceded 28 PCs.

Defending PCs is as important as anything in Indian hockey at the moment, because with Jugraj out of the picture and no suitable replacement arriving, India doesn’t have an expert to convert the chances they get. Fernandes says, ‘‘Last year the team was doing so well till the Asia Cup because the forwards and the PC experts were scoring. But the situation is quite hopeless.’’

The thinktank’s position on Len Ayyappa — the PC expert who was included in the team from the Afro-Asian Games — is not clear either. Ayyappa has been with the team for almost all important meets but has spent most of the time on the bench. ‘‘It seems that the management is not confident of giving Len much time on the field. If the drag-flicker is not given confidence, then the forwards have to do well without him.”

IHF’s policy of constant chopping and including new players have also created additional pressure on the regulars in the team. One of them told this paper, ‘‘When new players arrive so frequently, we know that they won’t be able to take the pressure. Today’s hockey is played at a high speed and all of us want to maintain our fitness but with additional pressure there is the danger of losing our form.’’

Unlike the top teams, the Indian probables for the Olympics are still to be finalised. The Australians have announced six replacements — all are part of their Olympic probables — who will be tried at the second-leg tournament in Sydney.