One feud too many

Trouble cropped up at the first major tournament they played, the 2002 Champions Trophy in Cologne. Pillay played a starring role in getting India to a bronze play-off, then faded out in the crunch match. A couple of months later, he told this reporter why: some of his teammates were deliberately not passing the ball to him. The rift between the star player and the chief coach came out in the open.

The IHF dealt with it in typical fashion: by issuing official denials and through off-the-record statements from officials that regionalism had existed in the Indian team for decades. The last year, 2003, was one of the most successful for Indian hockey team, including lucrative contracts and a sponsorship deal with Sahara. Pillay, again, was the star of the show. Scores of reporters turned up for his book launch; hundreds of kids lined up for his autographs. He was THE face of Indian hockey, and he knew it.

The problems it created were inevitable in a team sport. A major row took place at the team’s camp in Lucknow when a TV channel that had planned to shoot promos with Dhanraj for the Champions Trophy was not allowed to do so. The difference grew further when the team performed indifferently at the Champions Trophy. Rajinder blamed the media for distracting the players, going so far as to say that there were differences among players over media attention and contracts. The coach then slapped a media ban, a strange decision given the game’s urgent need for publicity — the only conclusion one could draw was that it was aimed at clipping Pillay’s wings.

The spat grew ugly at the finest hour: the team’s return from the Asia Cup, which they won. The media flocked to Dhanraj for soundbytes but Rajinder then stepped in and issued a ban on players speaking. It was all captured, in gory and full technicolour, and live on national television. Coincidentally or not, Pillay was ‘rested’ for the Afro-Asian Games, supposedly a showcase of Indian sports. He was recalled for the Azlan Shah, but leading a second-string team that finished last.The recurrent theme through all this is a distinct, and unpardonable, lack of communication between coach and star — and the tacit approval, or equally culpable indifference, of the IHF.

A situation that stands in ironic contrast to the state of women’s hockey — underpaid, underhyped but a team nonetheless. MK Kaushik, coach of that team and once coach to Dhanraj too, says before the Asia Cup for women, team captain Suraj Lata Devi was not fit when the camp started. ‘‘Suraj, my most vital player, failed to report for the first 11 days before the tournament.’’ She was given an extension of another week’s rest to be in shape for the Asia Cup.

Kaushik says, ‘‘If the player is valuable then the coach will do anything to get the player into the team.’’