Pargat begs to differ with Brasa on team’s improvement

Former captain Pargat Singh refused to agree with coach Jose Brasa’s viewpoint that Indian hockey team has improved with every match in the ongoing World Cup.

New Delhi: Former captain Pargat Singh on Sunday refused to agree with coach Jose Brasa’s viewpoint that Indian hockey team has improved with every match in the ongoing World Cup but did not blame the Spaniard for the hosts’ poor show.

After the euphoric 4-1 victory over arch-rivals Pakistan, India suffered three consecutive defeats against Australia, Spain and England, which eventually threw them out of the semifinal race. But Brasa says irrespective of the results, the hosts have showed significant improvement in their game. However, Pargat begs to differ with the Indian coach, saying even though the team would improve upon their ranking here, but they have a long way to go to match Europeans side. “As far as ranking is concerned, India has improved but performance wise I don’t see any improvement,” Pargat said. “Tactically, technically and individually they are doing plenty of mistakes. If you continue committing the same mistakes in every match, you can never reach the top level,” he said. Pargat, who is also the Hockey Punjab secretary, rued the absence of a domestic structure and said without proper system in place it would be difficult to prepare the bench strength. “We don’t have a proper system. No competitive domestic tournaments happened in the last two years apart from Surjit Singh tournament and a few others. Then from where we will get the players?,” Pargat questioned. “All other teams’ performance in the World Cup is the reflection of their system. We need to have a broader base. I feel pity for Brasa. He never got the opportunity to see the players in domestic tournaments and had to be satisfied with the bunch given to him by the selectors,” Pargat said. He was also critical of Sandeep Singh and said apart from his dragflicks, the defender has no other weapon in his armoury to justify his selection in the side. “Sandeep is always a very weak defender. His strength lies in penalty corners. But what I saw, he took most of the penalty corners at waist level, which is safest and easiest for a goalkeeper to stop,” Pargat said. Pargat also came hard on the selectors for carrying an unfit Deepak Thakur in the World Cup squad, who did very little to justify his place in the side. “I don’t know why he was selected in the team. Even I asked the selectors why he was included in the side when he was not fully fit. In the three matches he played, Deepak touched the ball only twice or thrice,” he said. PTI