Sandeep Singh’s 10th minute penalty corner conversion put India ahead in the title clash, but veteran Almada led Argentina’s fightback and scored a brace (14th, 73rd) to help his side clinch the championship.

After the Santiago debacle, IHF president KPS Gill, Carvalho and other support staff started a blame game, holding FIH and poor umpiring responsible for the Indian team’s defeat. Carvalho had even blamed the Tournament Director for visiting the team hotel in the middle of night to reprimand a player — Gurbaj Singh.

FIH official Bob Davidzon, also the Project Director of ‘Promoting Indian Hockey,’ ridiculed the Indian coach suggesting that he should know the rules of the event and try to be disciplined. “It is in the power of the manager to agree with the Tournament Director on a time and venue to have the compulsory ‘reading out’ of sentences to the players involved in an incident and that does not have to take place ‘in the middle of the night.’” Davidzon said in a statement.

He said Carvalho and his support staff might be punished for lashing out at tournament officials and violating the FIH code of conduct. “The Code of Conduct is very clear that all participants in a tournament… must not involve a personal attack on another player, umpire, appointed official or administrator.’ Non-adherence can lead to sanctions by the FIH for the persons concerned and the utterances by the coaching staff of India upon its return are at the moment under review and sanctions may apply,” he warned.

FIH President Els van Breda Vriesman, who met Indian Olympic Association President Suresh Kalmadi who is also the chairman of the ad-hoc committee which is running the game in the country, said the dates of the tournament would be declared later.

“FIH 2010 men’s world cup has been confirmed and the venue for it is New Delhi, which will also host the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Dates for the men’s world cup will be announced later,” she told reporters here.

In Friday’s final, India will face the winner of the second semi-final between South Korea and Japan, which will also be played on Wednesday night.

The match never lacked in tempo and had enough for the crowd to cheer. Scenes of jubilation broke in the stands after the final whistle and star of the match Diwakar was lifted by his team mates amid thunderous applause from the crowd. But the otherwise excellent match left a bad taste among the spectators when players of both the teams flung their hockey sticks at each other four minutes before the interval. The match was stopped for 10 minutes and the intervention of coaches and officials calmed the frayed tempers.

Pakistan has been a slow starter in the first half throughout the tournament but on Wednesday they went into the attacking mode right from the start. They got a penalty corner in the very first minute of the game but squandered it. The forward line then gave a troubled time to Indian custodian Sreejesh PR but failed to convert any shot. The Indian forward line too increased its tempo and soon struck with the combination of Roshan Minz and Chandi. Dodging past the defenders, Minz gave a fine pass to Chandi, who intercepted the ball in the circle and then let loose a stunning reverse hit that went past Pakistani goalkeeper in a flash.

Both teams then displayed fast paced hockey, the best in the tournament so far, and launched one attack after another. Just four minutes before the first half, an ugly spat between Indian forward SV Sunil and Pakistan’s defender Kashif turned nasty as players joined in and raised their sticks to hit one another. The umpires, Grochal Marcin of Poland and Al-Wahibi Thani Saheem of Oman, looked helpless and the managers and match officials had to run into the ground to separate them. The captains were shown green cards and one Pakistani player Mohammed Irfan who was injured, was sent out. India captain Gurbaz Singh also suffered injuries.

The Hockey Australia board made the decision not to attend the December 1-9 tournament based on Australian foreign ministry advice against traveling in Pakistan, Hockey Australia chief executive Linden Adamson said on Tuesday.

“It was a board decision … the players and coaching staff have been made aware of it, and at this stage I haven’t heard any adverse reaction to it,” Adamson said.

It is the third time Hockey Australia has decided against sending its men’s team to Pakistan for the annual tournament because of security fears. Australia also declined to play the 2004 tournament in Lahore, and the 2001 event, which was subsequently shifted to Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

“It (the sting operation) is never heard of in the world of field hockey. I wish the Indian hockey gets positive publicity and not this kind. We are in touch with both International Olympic committee and the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) how to proceed in such situation,” she said.

“Now the IOA has to manage Indian Hockey Confederation because I don’t think we can work with a half-suspended Secretary General (K Jothikumaran) and a president probably linked because he protects his secretary in this case,” she added.

What are your future plans?
We were never in deep trouble. It was because of KPS Gill’s deliberate mismanagement that the sport is fighting for survival now. His sole aim was to destroy hockey. Our first task is to instill confidence among the players and give them proper exposure.

Will you be comfortable working with other members of the panel?
Absolutely. It’s a fantastic committee comprising of aged, experienced and young members. Ajit Pal and I will be there as senior members while Ashok Kumar and Zafar Iqbal are all greats. So is Dhanraj. As he has just retired, he will be able to give us fresh ideas. I can assure you there will be no ego problems in my team.

Would you take suggestions from KPS Gill?
No way. He never asks for any suggestions and also doesn’t listen to anyone. He only does whatever suits him.

Your immediate aim?
Our main target is the 2010 World Cup which we will host. Then the Commonwealth Games… But first we have to bring the game back on track.

Do you think sponsors will come now?
I can assure you that we will get more sponsors as Gill is not there. Because of Gill’s attitude people were not ready to invest in hockey. Now that obstacle is gone. I hope the sponsors will flow in now. Also, both the government and Indian Olympic Association (IOA) are there to help us.

Hockey has again been promoted to Priority category…
We are grateful to Mr MS Gill (Sports Minister). It was really strong of him to ask KPS Gill to resign. That made the IOA’s task that much easier.

“I find that the entire discussions were recorded stealthily, willfully distorted and maliciously edited to show an entirely wrong picture,” Jothikumaran said in a statement.

Echoing Ashok Kumar, Pargat Singh said “we need to see the back of Gil urgently. Everything in the world needs a change for the better over time. So, why shouldn’t he go after his marathon reign?” Two time Olympic gold medallist Keshav Dutt lambasted IHF and Gill for the ‘sorry state’ of Indian hockey, and said “There should be changes in the IHF”. Dhanraj Pillay did not name Gill, but called for changes in the IHF office-bearers.

“I hotly deny that I have accused KPS Gill of misusing IHF money to fund his daughter’s wedding, as claimed by a news channel. In fact, the clip following this claim shows me making the general point that money are made available to improve the game. Nowhere in that clip or anywhere in the interview have I accused Gill of any personal abuse. I’m consulting my lawyers in the matter,” Aiyar said.

In a three-hour-long closed-door meeting between the Federation top bosses and the Sports Ministry, the IHF reportedly got an earful from the Ministry officials. However, while the Federation paid for Charlesworth ticket from Australia, he was not invited to the crucial meeting. “The only thing I would say is that if things remain the same, it won’t be the answer for India and I won’t want to be interested in that,” Charlesworth reacted.

It did not help matters that Federation Chief KPS Gill chose to remain silent on the minutes of the three-hour-long meeting. “This is neither the place nor the venue for a press conference. I will call you after we finish our talks,” he told the newsmen gathered outside the meeting venue. According to sources, IHF was pulled up for the debacle in the Olympic qualifiers and for no transparency in its functioning. The Ministry asked the IHF to involve Charlesworth by assigning and clearly demarcating his role.

Sources say the ministry will initially offer the Aussie coach a one-year contract with further extensions.

Like most disasters, not too surprisingly, nobody paid heed to the signs.

On a sultry evening in Chile earlier this week, even before dawn broke out in the country, the bomb finally exploded. The big bang jolted everybody out of their cocooned worlds, if only for a brief while; its splinters have pierced through many, many hearts and millions and millions have been left grieving.

Today, you and I, everybody has blood on our hands.

The men directly responsible for this carnage, however, are still standing tall and smiling. They have already listed out a bevy of excuses and are playing their favourite game too: the blame-game. KPS Gill, the one person who logically has to cop most of the blame, refuses to acknowledge it.

Without even blinking his eye, he says: ‘‘I need more time.’‘ Quite clearly, he is trapped in a time warp. After presiding over Indian’s hockey decline for 14 years, and epitomising almost everything that is wrong with sport in the country, he says he is not yet done. One wonders what really is his mission: wipe out the game completely? Kill hockey, Mr Gill?

Coach Joaquim Carvalho after initially owning up responsibility has done a quick about-turn. He has expounded the conspiracy theory too, accusing the FIH and Great Britain of colluding to keep India out of the Olympics. His initial response, the first excuse was equally insightful: ‘‘I have been at the helm for too short a time.’‘

Pray, are we living in some other world, where 11 months (forget Gill’s 14 years) seem like a lifetime?

To be fair to Carvalho, though, he delivered a fairly competitive team for the qualifiers: the players looked fitter, stronger and meaner. The bottomline, however, is that India failed to get through. The truth is the game has left us far behind.

Sports minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, meanwhile, shed a few (crocodile?) tears. He insisted he couldn’t do anything as the IHF was an autonomous body; he said he was also bound by the Olympic charter to watch helplessly. One wonders if some of these ministers are as righteous when it comes to other matters.

Not too long ago, the sports ministry was quick to move a bill to usurp television rights from cricket broadcasters who pay millions of dollars for them. Could that be more important than the potential death of hockey in the country? If Aiyar calls Gill and asks him to resign will he, indeed can he, refuse? As a sports minister can’t he do at least that much?

As the drama unfolded, however, a few interesting stories hit the grapevine. Somebody claimed that Gill’s security officer decides the composition of all the teams; somebody else revealed that the 2010 World Cup deal was signed by secretary Jothikumaran even as Gill was sitting in the coffee shop. And then, another said that Gill and Jothi aren’t even on talking terms.

What kind of a loony bin has IHF turned into, as Gerhard Rach (remember him?) once asked? More pertinently, who exactly runs the IHF? Who is this invisible and mysterious force ruining Indian hockey? Or, is it just on self-destruct mode? Indeed, do these officials work at cross-purposes when it comes to promoting the game, and in tandem, when it comes to promoting themselves? Too many questions, and no answers.

When the heat started singeing their backsides, though, the IHF buckled down and agreed to bring Ric Charlesworth back into the fold. As planned this is going to silence most of the voices. But don’t be surprised if the Australian is marginalised again: for obvious reasons, these officials don’t want a transparent, far-thinking system.

They want to eat the cake, have it and sell it too. In a few weeks’ time, the debacle and the blast in Chile will be forgotten. They will ride roughshod over the players again; they will treat coaches like puppets again. Hockey will continue to go down the drain and a day will come when nobody picks up that stick again. Hopefully, at least then, they will give our national game a decent burial.

The question that was being debated on CNN-IBN’s Face The Nation was: Hockey Debacle: Is India in danger of losing her national symbols? On the panel of experts to try and answer the question were Managing Director 21st Century Media, Lokesh Sharma; Former Indian hockey coach, Jagbir Singh; and Senior Journalist, Novy Kapadia.

Gill said India should have qualified for the Olympics at the 2006 Doha Asian Games itself where they finished outside the medal bracket for the first time since hockey was included in the continental mega event in 1958. “We floundered badly in Doha. One bad spell of 10 minutes in a match (against China) cost us. It should not have come to Santiago at all,” he said.

The IHF chief claimed the complicated qualification procedure also put lot of pressure on the team. “It was a new qualification procedure. Two or three months before the qualifying tournament, we didn’t know where we had to play. Only one team had to go through and unfortunately, we didn’t make it,” Gill said.

A disturbed Dhanraj Pillay, who could not sleep in the night after witnessing the team slumping to ignominy, said it’s high time the top brass of IHF was overhauled. “How much you speak about it is not sufficient. We have created a bad piece of history. It’s the worst day for Indian hockey. It’s time to replace the top officials of the federation. IHF never tried to take the help of players like me who have played for the country so long,” Pillay said.

The four-time Olympian, however, said people who matter should look forward instead of criticising the players. An irked Asian Games gold medallist goal-keeper A B Subaiah said not only Gill but the whole set up has to go after the debacle.

Viren Rasquinha is one of those few, who lived that dream, but now wants to come back to earth.

“Indians have the potential to perform and deliver better if they attain quality in their fitness level and skills and teamwork,” Charlesworth, who watching the ongoing Premier Hockey League here, said.

Describing PHL as a “competitive league”, he said such an endeavour by the Indian Hockey Federation was helping players improve their performance and work hard on their weak points.

There was little sustained booing as the Leafs put in one of their worst performances of the NHL season in losing 6-1 to the New York Rangers. Maybe the fans were more concerned about aiming their boos at Ranger agitator Sean Avery, who did not ignite any of the fireworks he did in the team’s last visit here on Nov. 10. Or maybe the fans were still in holiday mode and not up to airing out the local heroes, no matter how much they deserved it.

During their seven-game road stretch from Dec. 14 to 27, the Leafs argued they played good hockey even if they did run up an underwhelming 2-3-2 record, or 2-5 if you count overtime losses as losses.

But in their last two games, a 4-1 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers and the laugher to the Rangers, the Leafs were simply awful. The Rangers went 5-for-9 on the power play and once again the Leaf scorers were nowhere to be found.

In the one-sided Pool A encounter at the King’s Park Hockey Ground, India proved too strong for their 24th ranked rivals and exhibited their skills to provide adequate entertainment.

In the initial stage of the match, Deepika Thakur opened the scoring for the 13th-ranked Indians. Later, Jasjeet Kaur sounded the board once and Surinder then brought her quadruplet to seal the win for the side.

The Malaysians closely marked the Indian forwards in the early stages but could not prevent them from taking a 3-0 lead at the lemon break

While the International Hockey Federation recommends at least five-star accommodation for the players and officials, they have been housed at an ordinary hotel in the city.

Charlesworth, captain of the Australian team that won the 1986 World Cup, has taken up an assignment to structure a high performance program for Indian hockey.

Winner of eight Olympic gold medals between 1928 and 1980 – including six in a row from ’28 to ’56 – Indian hockey has been in decline in the past couple of decades, failing to qualify for the semi-finals of six consecutive Olympics since 1984.

India have also fallen short of making the semi-final in eight successive World Cups after winning the title in 1975.

The payments follows complaints by members of the team that their retention of hockey’s Asia Cup has been ignored by many in the country.

The team’s coach complained that in contrast, India’s Twenty20 cricket winners received large cash payments.

Correspondents say the payment is the largest made to the hockey players.

Cash rewards

“It is a small token of our appreciation for the team,” the General Manager for the State Bank of India, Surinder Kumar, told the BBC.

The national hockey coach, Joaquim Carvalho, earlier threatened that some of his players would even go on a hunger strike in protest over their lack of recognition after beating South Korea 7-2 on 9 September.

He complained that their achievement had been ignored by politicians, who had fallen over one another to give cash rewards to the triumphant Twenty20 cricketers.

India’s Gurbaj Singh (left) and South Korea’s Cho Suk Hoon
Hockey fans say their win was the more admirable achievement

“I am very happy for the players,” Mr Carvalho said after the bank announced its award.

“But it’s not just cash awards that the players are after, they would also be looking for the letters of appreciation from the prime minister and other leaders, like they used to receive on earlier occasions.”

The BBC’s Jyotsna Singh in Delhi says that money has been trickling in for the hockey players ever since they made their resentment public.

The civil aviation minister has already announced cash awards for those hockey players on the payroll of state-run Indian airlines and Air India.

Correspondents say the Asia Cup triumph success did not trigger anything like the wild celebrations lavished on the returning Twenty20 cricketers.

The President of the Indian Hockey Federation, KPS Gill, told the BBC earlier this week: “As far as the government and politicians are concerned they only know one sport – cricket.

“It’s a pity. But cricket gives the giver a lot of publicity. That’s why all these politicians are doling out cash awards to the cricket players.”

There was saturation media coverage of the cricket win, but only sparse coverage of the hockey triumph, even though hockey is India’s national sport.

Speaking to reporters, National Chief Coach, Joaquim Carvalho strongly objected to the announcement of cash awards by the Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel and the state governments of Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and Karnataka to the cricketers while ignoring the victory of his wards in the Asian Continental Championship early this month.

“Why our hockey players are orphaned and why our politicians are biased towards Hockey, the national game?”, Carvalho asked.

However, “we are grateful ever to the President of India for her sending individual letters congratulating the hockey players for their Asia cup win, without losing a match”.

Mamta Kharab chipped in three while Rita Rani, Jasjeet Kaur and Saba Anjum contributed two goals apiece. Suman Bala and Rajwinder Kaur sounded the board once each.

For Surinder, her goal tally swelled to nine as she had scored four in a row in India’s 6-0 thrashing of Malaysia. The defending champions led 5-0 in the interval and raised the momentum in the second half to show their class and slam 11 more goals.

India, who won their sixth straight match in the current tournament, now face Asian Games Champions Korea in the final to retain the title and also to gain vital ranking points in their quest for a Beijing [Images] Olympic berth.

Earlier, in the first semi-final, Korea survived some anxious moments before downing Malaysia 2-1.

Prabhjot Singh (two), Shivendra Singh and Roshan Minz were successful for India, while captain and penalty corner specialist Yamamori Takahiko scored the lone goal for Japan.

The defending champions, who led 2-0 at half-time, put up another sterling performance as they dominated the proceedings throughout with a near capacity crowd giving them support.

The Indians were far ahead showing cohesiveness in attack using both flanks. Being marked fully, the hosts were unable to split the crowded midfield every time, but continued to perform well for openings. After Japan wasted a penalty corner in the fifth minute, India showed superior play in the next ten minutes

Earlier, India marched to the final with an authoritative 4-1 victory over a fighting Japan in the second semi-final on Saturday.

Malaysia came up with a memorable performance to overcome Japan 5-3 and lift the bronze medal in the 7th Asia Cup hockey tournament for men on Sunday.

Final standing in the Seventh BSNL men’s Asia Cup hockey tournament.

India 1 China 0
Malaysia 8 Singapore 0
Bangladesh 13 Thailand 0
Korea 12 Lanka 2
Pakistan 6 Hong Kong 1

Dilip Tirkey converted the team’s seventh penalty corner to give India a 1-0 win over the Asian Games silver medallists to pocket the full three points.