FIH President Narinder Batra lashes out at Harendra Singh for bad behaviour

01/17/2019

Narinder Batra has criticised former India coach Harendra Singh on social media for the latter’s comments against the umpires after losing to the Netherlands in the quarter-final of the World Cup last month. The FIH president has also lashed out at Akashdeep Singh for using foul language.

Harendra had criticized the standard of umpiring stating about few of the decisions that went against the home team during the post-match press conference after their loss against the Dutch in the Hockey World Cup in December. The Netherlands had defeated India 2-1 ending Harendra Singh’s dream of making India the world champions.

Batra has spoken against the recently-sacked coach on Facebook and had earlier spoken about the incident during the World Cup as well.

“After India lost to Netherlands in the quarterfinals in 2018 Men's Hockey World Cup in Bhubaneshwar, SOMEONE part of the indian contingent, immediately claimed after the loss that India lost because India was playing against 13 players and not 11. By saying so, the concerned Gentleman has done the biggest dis-service to the Sport. If one has lost, then accept the loss gracefully and introspect where things went wrong and not criticize others for your mistakes, Batra wrote on Facebook.

“Everyone can make mistakes in life and that includes me also and one should learn from these mistakes to mature and grow in life and rectify the mistakes to grow bigger and stronger. These kind of Irresponsible statements do not label only an individual but the entire Country as Sore and Bad Losers and by doing so the concerned Gentleman has done the biggest dis-service to the Sport.”

The FIH president also mentioned the incident involving Akashdeep Singh as the forward had used foul language making false remarks at the technical officials soon after India lost to the Dutchmen in the same game. Akashdeep is now facing a two-match suspension by the FIH for the inappropriate behaviour.

“This just does not end here only, immediately after the end of the quarterfinals match, a senior athlete of indian team makes inappropriate remarks at technical table and later on in disciplinary hearing gets a justified 2 match suspension,” the FIH president added.

“The indiscipline and groupism that has crept within the team and team management needs to end and stop. This now could potentially mean that Indian team, may have to play the first 2 matches of 2020 Olympic Qualifiers for qualification being held in june 2019 with only 17 players and not 18.”

Batra, however, tried to lift the spirits of the Indian team ahead of the Olympic qualifiers, which are scheduled to be played in the month of June in Bhubaneswar this year.

“We again have lot of hard work to do and firstly to focus as to how to improve on our world ranking in 2020 which in all probability could be anywhere upto 9th beginning of 2020 due to 2018 miserable performances and secondly to work hard to qualify for 2020 Olympics and that will only come with discipline, hard work and respect for the sport.

“We all have one common aim and goal, that is to be on the podium in Olympics and world cup and that can only come with discipline, hard work and respect for the sport,” concluded Batra.

FIH President Narinder Batra lashes out at Harendra Singh for bad behaviour

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