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[cricinfo]

Super cop to super flop
LOKENDRA PRATAP SAHI
 
K.P.S. Gill 
Calcutta: Last August, it was the “Chak de India” cry which rent the air from Burdwan to Bhatinda. After the Olympic qualifiers’ fiasco in Santiago, it’s “Chuck out Gill.”

Kanwar Pal Singh Gill, though, remains unfazed. He was a super cop all right but has proved a super flop as the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) supremo.

Indeed, Gill has been around for almost a decade-and-a-half, but has little to show except the 1998 Bangkok Asian Games gold.

It’s an era of accountability, but the IHF chief (who, by all accounts, has reigned with an iron fist) refuses to take anything on his shoulders.

Joaquim Carvalho has done the honourable thing by quitting — actually, one has lost count of the number of coaches who’ve either been sacked or have resigned in Gill’s era — but the supremo has been unmoved.

“I don’t just want him thrown out, I want him kicked out,” thundered MP Gurudas Dasgupta, who keeps track of sport, on Monday evening.
-HOPE CHAPPALITES NOTICE THAT HOW SPORTS FOLLOWER MP GURUDAS SHOWS CONCERN IN CASE OF HOCKEY TOO ....UNLESS YOU CAN SHOW ME A LINK BETWEEN SG AND HOCKEY TEAM
A common enough sentiment that.

Another MP, as incensed, recalled the good old days when the nation would tune in to the radio commentary (Jasdev Singh’s in particular) and keenly follow the exploits of the Ajit Pal Singhs and Zafar Iqbals.

Gill, of course, seems to have drawn some inspiration from Greg Chappell. A statement from him talked of a “process” having been put in place.

It’s the former Team India coach who made “process” fashionable. Or, the most loathed word, depending on which side of the fence you were on.

One of the IHF’s senior vice-presidents has quit, but why did he wait so long if he had such strong reservations over being Gill’s colleague?

It’s the men within who’re responsible for this shame.

Not too long ago, one of the selectors told The Telegraph: “You know how our teams are picked...” He was alluding to the IHF chief’s interference.

Need one say anything more?
 
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080311/jsp/sports/story_9005505.jsp

[RicePlateReddy]

My take (dare I say a one shared by an appreciable number of Indians). Hockey was good when we dominated years ago and it was truly our national sport. With cricket on the main stage, interest has largely been lost -- for instance, how many schools in the country even play hockey as a percentage compared to cricket? If not for the army, I think this sport will be dead in India.

We will only get what we put into it. Right now we haven't put much, so the results will be poor. I don't think it is worth putting more into.

[CLR James]

Gill is a monster who should go, but we lost the hockey battle years ago, when we, along with Pakistan, agreed to play by the rules of the west and shifted from grass to astro turf. We did not have the national infrastructure to support the game at the grass roots level, and the game itself became more oriented to a hit and run style that was antithetical to our tradition of artistry. The eclipse of hockey as a popular game in the subcontinent owes much to this yawning gap in realities between the local and the global. But then, I suppose it was a bunch of myopic Gill types in the IHF that allowed this to happen back in the day. Had the poor third world nations in the Commonwealth and Latin America taken a common stance against this, perhaps it would not have happened. Who dominated hockey after that? Australia, Germany, and Britain -- all rich countries. What is also interesting is that this domination was achieved almost overnight, within a decade.