NEW DELHI, 8 May 2004 — Dhanraj Pillay may still realize his dream of playing in a fourth Olympics, India’s hockey chief said yesterday, lashing out at the national upheaval over the veteran playmaker’s omission from the list of 30 probables.
Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) President Kunwar Gill said the 35-year-old Pillay will not be out of contention when the selectors pick the squad for the Athens Games to be held in August.
“I have always maintained that a couple of players from outside the pool of 30 could be part of the Olympic team,” Gill told reporters. “But I can’t say if Pillay will certainly be included. That we will know only when the team is named in July.”
Gill, a renowned former police officer credited with curbing Sikh militancy in the northern state of Punjab in the 1980s’, slammed the sympathy shown to Pillay in the media by former players and administrators.
Even the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) joined the outpouring of support for Pillay after his exclusion last Sunday. “I’ve made a strong plea to Gill for the inclusion of Pillay,” IOA President Suresh Kalmadi said in a statement.
Pillay had not been considered for the Olympic qualifiers in Spain in March — in which India finished fourth to make the trip to Athens — because the IHF claimed he was suffering from a knee injury.
The mercurial striker, stressing he was fit, said he had been left out of the qualifiers because some of his younger teammates did not want him in the side and coach Rajinder Singh had not fully backed him.
India won the last of their eight Olympic hockey gold medals in 1980, but there have been signs of a recent resurgence with victory in the Asia Cup and a fourth-place finish in the elite Champions Trophy — both times with Pillay in the team.
The list of 30 probables, which includes 12 players who won the junior Asian title in Pakistan recently, also omitted two other seniors, Baljit Dhillon and Baljit Saini.
IOA’s Kalmadi agreed with former hockey greats like Ashok Kumar and even ex-cricket captain Bishen Bedi that Pillay’s experience was needed in the tough environs of an Olympics.
