Kabhi Carrot, Kabhi Stick

Dhanraj Pillay and Rajinder Singh are two people whose characters could not be more different. Yet, they share one common trait—both can be extremely difficult and illogical at times. Singh is known to have privately commented in the past that Pillay is not easy to handle. Pillay, on his part, has publicly shown his disapproval of the coach—he often refused to come out for rolling subsitution during the Champions Trophy.

The ugly spat between the two on arrival from Kuala Lumpur threatened to overshadow the celebrations of a title win when Singh refrained an ecstatic Pillay from speaking to the waiting mediamen. Enraged, Pillay broke down into tears, and shouted back: "Stop this nonsense. I am speaking on behalf of the team. I am not seeking any publicity for myself."

IHF secretary-general K. Jothikumaran salvaged the embarrassing situation by packing the players and the coach off to their rooms. They arranged for a press conference a little later and Jothikumaran played down the faceoff, saying: "The incident is a minor one, not to be exaggerated."

Pillay is often given to theatrics—time and again he has berated the media for making superstars of cricketers, ignoring hockey. He may be the player who can transform a game in a matter of minutes, but he can also embarrass the team and the game with an emotional outburst. Singh, meanwhile, often gives the impression of being extremely insecure. His theory that the players' speaking to the media and giving phone-in interviews or writing columns affected the team's performance in Amstelveen Champions Trophy holds no water. Indian TV channels besieged just about everybody who had ever held a hockey stick in their lives, and that included foreign players, be it Dutch or Pakistani or Australian. But above all, wasn't Singh himself guilty of writing a column for a daily newspaper? And time and again, he himself was unavailable for post-match conferences as he was busy giving interviews to TV channels. Even after the sensational 7-4 win over Pakistan, he left the press conference midway to talk to a TV reporter.

It's difficult to fathom why the IHF harbours such a distrust towards Indian media. It has been something IHF president K.P.S. Gill almost prides himself on. Singh seems to be following in his president's footsteps. Somebody please tell them that with the team producing good results, maybe it's time for the IHF too to go in for an image makeover and, surely, their sponsors, the Sahara Group, will love them for it.