CHENNAI: A few days after India’s exit at the hands of The Netherlands in the men’s hockey World Cup in December, Australian player Kieran Govers posted a question on Twitter. “Next coach @TheBigDog_5?,” he asked? The handle he had tagged was his former teammate, Chris Ciriello, who was India’s analytical coach. Govers was tongue-in-cheek but his question, at least partly, reflected what the world thought about Hockey India’s revolving door policy.

Guess what? Govers has been proved right. An HI high performance and development committee, after a meeting on Monday, axed the men’s coach. “(...) have recommended to reassign Harendra Singh as coach for the Indian junior men’s hockey team,” a statement read.

“The offer has been made by committee chairman Dr RP Singh for the said position to Harendra Singh for taking charge of the junior men’s team commencing from the camp slated to start in March 2019. In the meanwhile, HI will shortly be advertising and will invite applications for the position of chief coach. In the interim, the team will be overseen by David John and Chris Ciriello.”

Even if the sacking — 25th axing in as many years — was expected, the way HI carried it out suggests a lack of plan. For starters, this daily has learnt that both Harendra, who is in Varanasi to deliver a lecture on leadership to students of Banaras Hindu University, and Jude Felix, current coach of the junior men’s side, weren’t even informed of the decision. They had to learn from the media. If HI had deemed Harendra, who led India to their best ever World Cup finish in 24 years, unworthy of the senior side why was he deemed worthy of coaching the junior team?

The other bizarre thing about the arrangement is the way HI asked John to jointly ‘oversee the team’. It was only in October that the same body dropped John from the selection panel for the World Cup for showing bias against certain players. “I am not happy with David John commenting on individual players who played in Asian Games. As a matter of policy/principle, we do not allow discussion on individual players in public domain and John, by discussing that, has broken all protocols,” Mushtaque Ahmad, the body’s chief had said then, as the reason behind taking away John’s selection-related powers.

So what was the thought process HI undertook to find out whether John had dropped his ‘bias’ against certain players? When this daily contacted RP Singh, chairman of HI’s high performance and development committee, to get answers, all he said was ‘please get in touch with the HI president’. Of immediate concern is what happens if and when Harendra declines to take up this offer? Will he compel HI to openly sack him? What happens to Felix if Harendra toes the party line? Nobody knows the answer to anything.
Meanwhile, India, in less than six months, have a pre-Olympic qualifier.

Coach & Tenure

Harendra Singh
May 1, 2018 - Jan 9, 2019

Sjoerd Marijne
Sept 8, 2017 - May 1, 2018

Roelant Oltmans
July 25, 2015 - Sept 2, 2017

Paul van Ass
Jan 30, 2015 - July 20, 2015

Terry Walsh
Oct 15, 2013 - Nov 18, 2014