Even as hockey aficionados hope against hope that the silver medal in the recent Champions Trophy doesn’t represent yet another false dawn, Indian hockey is struggling to shake off the controversies.
Sardar Singh, who first captained the side in 2008, was stripped of the captaincy after all the negative publicity that followed allegations of abuse from his former fiancee.
Sardar, though, remains part of the squad for Rio 2016. Ritu Rani, who had led the women’s team since 2011 and helped them qualify for the Olympics for the first time since 1980, has no such consolation. She was dropped from the side altogether, with Hockey India citing poor attitude and a dip in performance.
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As recently as March, Neil Hawgood, the one-time Australian Olympian who now coaches the Indian women’s team, had said: “Ritu just gives us a work-rate that is second to no one else in the world ... I think we’ve got to be careful with her because every game she turns up, she gives us that performance. We need to manage her now going into the Olympics.”
Rani made her debut as a 14-year-old in 2006, and has been one of Indian hockey’s stalwarts. It’s understood that her decision to get engaged in the run-up to the Olympics also didn’t endear her to those that matter.
“I didn’t leave any training or camps, I got engaged when the camp was on a break,” she said, before breaking down in a TV interview.
“I feel playing hockey for all these years has been useless. My fiancee is hugely upset. Sardar Singh is also facing personal problems, his captaincy has been taken away as well, but he is still in the team. Then why this treatment with me?”
Rani may have been late for a few practice sessions, but at the highest level, coaches and other support staff are supposed to be able to manage even the “difficult” characters.
By dropping her altogether, at a time when many think Sardar has been treated with kid gloves, the women’s team may just have done serious harm to their chances of making an impression on the biggest stage.
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