Hockey India say midfielder Gurbaj Singh created disharmony within team

First coach Paul van Ass, and now seasoned midfielder Gurbaj Singh.

After sacking van Ass to much public uproar, Hockey India have named Gurbaj for “misbehaviour and creating disharmony within the team” according to a report on IBNLive. This came from the same committee that HI had appointed to look into the Van Ass issue.

The committee didn’t elaborate on how exactly Gurbaj caused ‘disharmony’ in the team, but the player (who has more than 200 caps for India) has been in this situation before.

Gurbaj was reported for a similar offence during the 2012 London Olympics, when India were coached by Michael Nobbs. However, former skipper Rajpal Singh doesn’t think Gurbaj is as indisciplined as he is made to look by the federation.

“I have played with Gurbaj for more than five years and for two years I was his captain, but not even once I found him indisciplined. In fact, in today’s team, I would rank him among the top four-five players,” he told IBNLive .

Rajpal also hinted that Gurbaj was being made a scapegoat for poor performances and urged HI to not leave him out of the Olympics team.

He also pointed to the federation’s track record of not taking indiscipline too seriously: “Why is it that the most indisciplined player in 2011 [Sardar Singh> became the captain just six months after that,” he said.

While Van Ass himself has not submitted his report on India’s Hockey World League Semifinals campaign, the committee’s chairperson Harbinder Singh said that there were other coaches in Belgium who spoke to them.

“Van Ass was not the only coach there. There were other members of the coaching staff (including assistant coaches Jude Felix and Sandeep Sangwan) who were with the team. I can’t take any name but we have been told about Gurbaj’s misbehaviour,” the former Olympian said.

It will be interesting to see whether new coach Roelant Oltmans includes Gurbaj in future teams — India’s next tour starts on 31 July as they travel to France and Spain for a three team tournament.

Click here to read the full IBNLive report.