Hockey India’s fixing allegations against Pakistan seem like a desperate attempt to deflect blame

What is expected after a team returns from an international assignment? A performance appraisal, right? An analysis into what the team achieved and if they achieved nothing, why so? If they lost, what were the reasons for not winning? How good were Plans B and C?

Prepare a report card of players, coaches, assistants, backroom staff, goes the general thinking. Sit down, analyse and list corrective measures. That’s the usual course of action. But no, India isn’t doing any of that, at least for now.

Hockey India, on Thursday, made public an official complaint against Pakistan to the International Hockey Federation, alleging that Pakistan had attempted to “fix” the pool match against India at the Hockey World League Semi-Final in London.

The newsbreak, especially the word “fixing”, threatened pandemonium. Copies of HI’s letter to FIH spread like pamphlets outside a shopping mall. Pakistan and fixing is a heady combination, for obvious reasons. Studios almost geared up for a fiery prime time show. But none of that happened. The debate time of all the guests was restored once the eight-page document was read out across newsrooms.

A murky backdrop

In London last month, former India captain Sardar Singh’s alleged girlfriend, a British-Indian hockey player filed a police complaint. Sardar was called for questioning at a police station in Leeds, where he was accompanied by team’s assistant coach-cum-manager Jugraj Singh. The player has already filed various complaints against Sardar globally since 2013, alleging rape and physical torture while claiming to be his fiancée.

HI’s allegations of fixing by Pakistan revolve around this development.

The Indian camp received the summons before their pool match against Pakistan, who came to the tournament with a weak team. HI claims that to compensate for their weakness and make India play with 17 players, Pakistan plotted and asked the woman in question to file the complaint with such timing that Sardar was forced to miss the match. However, that didn’t happen. Sardar played the game and travelled to Leeds the next day. For the record, India thrashed Pakistan 7-1, their biggest win ever against the traditional foes.

Serious allegations

The letter from HI president Mariamma Koshy to FIH CEO Jason McCracken is accompanied by two annexures – these are letters from Jugraj and Sardar to Koshy.

The allegations take a serious turn in Jugraj’s letter, where he has mentioned a money angle and a Pakistani-origin Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Indian team’s manager talks of being informed by “fans and friends” in England that the unnamed Pakistani politician facilitated the complaint by paying £5000 to the complainant.

Jugraj wrote: “By our Indian fans and friends in England and our friends from Pakistan in England, we were informed in hush-hush tones that all this was planned in the office of a Member of Parliament of England from Manchester (who is of Pakistan origin) that a particular lady who had filed complaints against Sardar Singh in Belgium and India for rape will file the complaint with Leeds Police before the India-Pakistan match. The Leeds Police will call Sardar on the day of the match and India will then be playing with only 17 players and without their main playmaker. Hence, Pakistan will have more chances of winning.”

Intriguingly, this relation quoted by Jugraj finds its roots in FIH president Narinder Batra’s deleted Facebook post. Batra had posted on his personal account after summons against Sardar, alleging “pressure of 16 Pakistan-origin Members of Parliament who got elected in recent elections in England” behind the development.

Batra later had to delete the post and issue a personal apology via “formal letters and follow-up phone calls to several nations”. These nations in all likelihood also included Pakistan.

Continuing in his letter to the HI president, Jugraj then went on to make mention of the money “the complainant” allegedly took.

“Further from the hush-hush sources, i.e., our friends of Indian and Pakistan-origin staying in England/GB, it was also made known to us that the complainant took £5000 for filing the complaint and the same was organised through the representative of the above-mentioned Member of Parliament. The sources that informed us are scared to come forward due to the consequences they may have to face at the hands of England Police,” Jugraj wrote.

If HI can prove the money exchange and the intended harm on the game, then this issue will become much more than what it is at this stage.

This can’t be an excuse for poor performance

Though it might be Jugraj’s personal opinion, but for a team manager to say that the team lost to minnows Malaysia and Canada because of this off-field issue is unacceptable.

India lost the quarter-final to Malaysia and then the 5th-6th placement match to Canada. By virtue of their wins, both Malaysia and Canada qualified for the World Cup to be held in India next year.

But what was coach Roelant Oltmans doing if the team got disturbed? Isn’t he there to motivate them as well, apart from the strategising, planning and training? Don’t you go on the field for your country leaving your personal troubles on the sidelines? It can’t be that the issue affected the entire team as much as it did the man in the middle of it. Will the other 17 players admit that they lost to Malaysia and Canada because Sardar was mentally disturbed? Never.

It must be agreed that India were simply not good enough on those days and were outplayed and out-thought by the opponents. It doesn’t matter if India had 20 shots at goal and Canada just four. What matters is that Canada scored from three of those shots and India just 2 out of 20.

Sadly, Jugraj tried to hide the whole team behind an excuse, something most players in that squad may not agree to.

“This incident affected the morale of the Indian team, and the team lost focus and purpose. The performance of the team can be seen in the matches that happened after this incident of Sardar Singh. The team lost against Holland the next day and also against Malaysia and Canada (both lower ranked thank India). Before this incident, India had won all 3 pool matches,” Jugraj mentioned in the letter.

By saying this, the Indian team manager is in clear contradiction with what Oltmans and captain Manpreet Singh said after Sardar’s questioning.

“I don’t expect that (Sardar incident to affect team’s morale). Everyone in the team knows already about the situation between Sardar and this girl for a long time. It’s nothing new,” Oltmans had told The Field while Sardar was on his way back from Leeds on June 19.

“I don’t think yesterday’s events had an effect on Sardar. For me, he played a good game and was pretty calm,” Manpreet had said after the match against Netherlands on June 20.

Why has media-shy Sardar come out into the open?

According to Sardar in his letter to Koshy, out of the 10 cases filed by the complainant across Europe and Asia, nine have already been closed – leaving the one in Delhi to come up for hearing in October this year.

What then made a usually quiet Sardar to come out in the open now and not wait until October? Possibly it would have been all over in the courtroom itself. But he feels the complainant’s family might get him killed.

“The lady has the habit of filing bogus complaints and is harassing and torturing me mentally and also spoiling my name and reputation and also my family,” Sardar said in the letter.

“I wish to further add that she and her father are threatening me with physical harm and threatening to kill me. On two occasions, she visited my team hotel in London in 2017 during the just concluded HWL Semi-Final to intimidate me. I have now decided to file a complaint against her in India for stalking and harassment. A copy of the complaint will be sent to you for Hockey India reference and needful.”

While that’s understandable as a reason, what one of India’s finest playmakers must ensure is that he isn’t used in this blame game between India and Pakistan. His battle with the complainant is at a personal level, and he knew before travelling to London that he might be pulled up. That reportedly was also large part of the reason why he skipped the Champions Trophy last year.

In the middle of it all, what hurts Indian hockey is that at a time when its caretakers should have been deliberating over reasons for embarrassing defeats, they appear busy settling scores, and more sadly, finding lame excuses for poor performance.