Current hockey team not good enough to play in World Cup: Shahid

Varanasi, Sep 13 (UNI) India's continuing debacle in Germany may have come as a shock to most but Mohammad Shahid is hardly surprised, for the former Olympian believes the squad was not good enough for a high-calibre tournament like the Hockey World Cup.

But refusing to blame Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) President KPS Gill for lack of planning, the former player criticised the selectors who picked the team for the World Cup.

''This is the team which simply does not deserve to play in the World Cup. But I don't blame Mr Gill for that. It is very easy to put the blame on the IHF chief. But before blaming him or demanding his resignation, one should remember that he has never been a hockey player and is only administering the body,'' he said.

Shahid, however, felt that Mr Gill should demand an explanation from the selectors as to how a team, which neither had a playmaker like Dhanraj Pillay nor an expert drag-flicker, was sent to represent the country at the World Cup.

''Barring skipper Dilip Tirkey, other defenders and central mid-fielders choked in dying moments against Germany, England and Korea, which speaks volumes about what (coach Vasudevan) Bhaskaran did for the team during the ambitious training camps,'' Shahid said.

He also felt it was high time to get a short-corner coach from Holland.

''Be it unlucky Sandip Singh or Jugraj Singh or even the present stopgap arrangement Raghunath or the likes of Len Aiyappa. The existing, as well as the potential drag-flickers can only be transformed into match winners with the guidance of short corner experts from Netherland,'' he maintained.

''If you want to outsmart likes of Taeka Taekema, who single-handedly destroyed India yesterday, you have to learn the skills of drag-flicking from the penalty corner specialists and you can't have a better country than Holland to hire them,'' he explained.

The former player, who scored the in the final of the 1980 Moscow Olympics -- the last time India won the Olympic hockey gold -- also felt that IHF should not experiement with foreign coaches anymore and persist with the Indians.

At the same time, Shahid urged IHF to widen its base.

''Instead of shuffling the teams from a pool of 20 players, the IHF needed to broaden the base for team selection by discovering more promising players from the entire country and not only from a single province,'' he said.

UNI ARS SB AY VV1716