I want the Australian legend and newly-appointed Technical Expert of Indian hockey, Ric Charlesworth and FIH which is behind the ‘Promote Indian hockey’ project, to know about the hurdles that come in the way of encouraging Indian hockey.

This is not the first time. IHF president KPS Gill didn’t like Bansal, so, he was removed from the post of India Junior coach despite leading the team to Asia Cup victory in the 1990s. If you think such whimsical attitude towards coaches and players, was only the prerogative in the headstrong Gill’s kingdom, then, you are mistaken. Actually, it’s part of India’s sporting culture.

One Mr Satapathy, whose name probably you’ve never heard of, wasn’t happy that Bansal got the credit for Orissa Steelers’ winning the PHL title last year. Surely, in the eyes of India’s sports administrators, it’s a serious crime for which coaches must pay a price. The Delhi-based coach spent several years in Orissa’ s backward districts in the early 1990s to mentor several adivashi players, including former India captain and ace defender Dilip Tirkey and others. When the talented but low-profile Orissa team made an entry in the second-tier of PHL in 2005-06, no other coach was interested but Bansal happily took over the team. Not surprisingly, they went on to win the PHL 2nd tier title. But, Mr Satapathy, a lawyer by profession and secretary of the Orissa Hockey Association obviously thought it wasn’t good enough argument for retaining Bansal for PHL 2007-08.

Bansal had “hogged” the media limelight and was sought for his astute analysis during the PHL matches by ESPN, whereas Satapathy, who was the manager of the team was ignored. Therefore, Bansal had to be thrown out of the job. Imagine the temerity of a coach, who had “merely” contributed by guiding his team to the PHL 2nd tier in the first year and then the PHL title the next time. Bansal and coaches like him should be taught a lesson that it’s not enough. You have to pay obeisance to your administrative boss first and ensure that the world should be told that, while he was merely the coach, the actual catalyst for Orissa’s stunning back-to-back victories was Mr Satapathy, the manager and secretary of the local association.

We are obviously expecting too much that Gill should have tried to find out why his winning team’s coach was not included for PHL 2007-08? That’s not Gill’s problem, as he had famously said about the brilliant youngster Rajiv Mishra when his career was finished due to an injury.

It’s the same story for the players also. Gagan Ajit Singh was ruling the ‘D’ from 2001-03 but these days, he’s more busy with training for Punjab Police on how to control law and order in his district. Viren Rasquinha has been rising as a midfielder since his debut in 2002 and was recently a major hit in the German league.

But, the other day when we met over dinner after the soft-spoken had returned from his interview at the Indian School of Business (Hyderabad), he told me, “The game has given me everything, I wish to continue playing top-level hockey.” However, when I asked him about a call from IHF (In Indian sports, it will be unfair to call it Indian team; more appropriate to describe as IHF’s team), he remained silent and dodged a reply till the end of our conversation. Centre-forward Deepak Thakur, medio Bimal Lakra, the list is long of the players who were killed in their 20s. Imagine, they were part of a team, which was regarded by FIH president Els Brenda as “the best talent to come up in a long time from India”. At some point or the other, these talented players had lost their careers to the Satapathys of Indian hockey.

Pic Captions

Top: Padamshree Dilip Tirkey hugging his coach AK Bansal

Middle: Present national team captain Prabodh Tirkey watches his team mates celebrating the PHL III title win last year at Chandigarh

Bottom: 'Sacked' coach Bansal with some of the foreign players of Orissa Steelers