Hockey India set to take action against Sandeep, Sardara

Hockey India's general secretary Narender Batra on Wednesday said they are planning to take strong disciplinary action against Sandeep Singh and Sardara Singh for abruptly leaving the national camp, currently underway in Bangalore.

The two controversial players, who made their way into the team for the Asian Champions Trophy, left chief coach Michael Nobbs and his support staff in a tizzy with their sudden decision to leave the camp on Tuesday, reportedly due to an argument with the team management.

"We won't take this matter lightly. It is a serious disciplinary issue because it is the third time they have repeated such an offence. I will call a meeting of the disciplinary committee on August 26 or 27 to discuss this issue," Batra told PTI.

Disciplinary committee chairman Pargat Singh, members of players' representative in Hockey India, Rajneesh Mishra and Mukesh Kumar, Nobbs and two government observers in HI selection committee Harvinder Singh and Dilip Tirkey will be present at the meeting.

"We will discuss the matter in detail and I will leave it on them to decide what action needs to be taken against the two players," Batra said.

He blamed the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) for Wednesday's happening.

"There are reports that the IHF is playing all these games from behind. If this sort of things continue we will not be able to qualify for the Olympics which the IHF wants," Batra said.

While both players said they left because of personal reasons, it was learnt that Sardara and Sandeep do not have a good equation with the team management and other players. Sardara, apparently, did not see eye-to-eye with skipper Rajpal Singh and was not on talking terms with him, affecting their rapport on the field.

The two were part of the famous five - Adrian D'Souza, Prabhjot Singh and Arjun Halappa being the other three - who had quit the camp without permission to be part of the World Hockey Series launch in Mumbai last month.

But they were included in the Champions Trophy team after they promised, yet again, that they would put India ahead of every other priority.