HC directs HI to let Odisha play nationals

BHUBANESWAR: Orissa High Court directed Hockey India to allow Odisha men’s and women’s teams to participate in the senior nationals after the team was barred from participating over not providing player details online within deadline.

Responding to a petition by Hockey Odisha, justice KR Mohapatra in an interim order asked HI to allow the teams to participate. The 10th senior national hockey championship for men will be held from January 23 to February 2 at Jhansi.

The women’s championship will be held from January 30 and February 9 at Kollam. Nine other states including Assam and Jammu and Kashmir were also left out of the nationals for the same reason. They too could not register player details like date of birth and medical record before the deadline (Dec 31 for men Jan 8 for women) in the federation’s member unit portal.

With Odisha sponsoring the national men’s and women’s hockey teams and Bhubaneswar installed as India’s hockey capital, the state’s exclusion from the nationals had drawn sharp criticism. The state government spent ~82 crore for the 2018 men’s World Cup in Bhubaneswar.

Hockey Odisha secretary Pratap Satpathy said the association could not have given the particulars by December 31 as they wanted to ensure that none of the selected players were injured. “The portal wants details of players’ shoe size, jersey size and several other details. Can a team be selected a month before a tournament? If we select a team and some of the players are injured what do we do?” asked Satpathy.

“We had informed the sports department about the difficulties and sought their intervention. As we did not get any response, we approached Orissa High Court,” said Satpathy.