Are India's hockey heads hell-bent on killing the sport?
The nine-member Hockey India (HI) probe committee headed by Olympian Harbinder Singh turned "hangman" on Friday as it decided to sack coach Paul van Ass who worked with the Indian men’s team for less than six months.
BP Govinda, Vasudevan Baskaran, AB Subbaiah, Thoiba Singh, RP Singh, Asunta Lakra, Jasjeet Kaur and Elena Norman were the other members of the team who seemed to have decided beforehand that van Ass had to go.
The sequence of events leading to the sacking of one more foreign coach of the Indian hockey team could indeed make you throw up as dirty linen had been needlessly washed in public before.
Just to jog the readers’ memory, after the Indian team scraped past Malaysia 3-2 in the Hockey World League in Antwerp, Belgium, it was reported by the Indian Express first that HI president Narinder Batra entered the arena and had a spat with van Ass.
Various "explanations" have been given to what transpired on the hockey field but van Ass made it clear on Friday when he spoke to the Indian media he was fired and not shown any respect at all by HI.
So, what is it about this Hockey World League where India playing badly caused such consternation in HI? It was not as if the men were playing for Rio Olympics qualification as that berth had been sealed last year by winning gold medal in the Incheon Asian Games.
Agreed, when it comes to competing against the European teams, India are no match and can at best beat Asian countries. HI president Batra has spoken about how tough it is to find sponsorship and so on and he wanted to have a word with the team.
Surely, that could have waited for a few hours or even a day so that he could have spoken to the team and coach van Ass. The Dutchman spilled the beans on Friday when he said he had never before seen a federation president enter the arena.
Batra has had running battles with the sporting officialdom in India at various levels and as one who has raised the bar by bringing in some money for hockey at home, he needed to be patient.
If Batra or anyone thinks we are going to win a medal in the Rio Olympics, please take it was a spoon of salt. India finished at the bottom in 2012 at the London Olympics and from there the journey till the Incheon Asiad was fascinating.
The long list of coaches who have come and gone from Jose Brasa to Michael Nobbs and Terry Walsh to van Ass is scary. Each one had been hounded out by HI as if they were duds.
From non-performance to haggling over money and leave, each coach had his share of issues with HI but the way van Ass was hounded out is a reflection of the way hockey is run in the country.
The least one would have expected from former Olympians sitting in the committee was they had a conference chat with van Ass on Friday and then decided. Instead, Harbinder, a very respected figure at home, was party to signing van Ass’s "death warrant" in a sick manner.
With just about a year to go for the Rio Olympics, one would imagine Indian hockey needs stability. Publicly chastising the chief coach, who we call "guru" at home was unnecessary.
Spare a thought for the hockey players who have to keep adjusting to new tactics, strategies and hockey philosophies each time a coach changes. Hockey is not like batting or bowling in cricket where the individual has to deliver on his own.
As a team sport, hockey calls for playing with passion and cohesion where the player is expected to deliver according to what has been discussed on the drawing board.
Van Ass is gone and the team is in Shilaroo training for the big event a year away. Such distractions do no good to the team morale as parting ways with a coach is not pleasant. Lack of continuity in the coaching system and a dictatorial style of functioning is something HI needs to get over with at the earliest.
If not, one year hence, should India fare badly in Rio, once again some former Olympians will be part of a sham committee doing the "hangman" job for coaches and players.