Not Hockey India’s determination alone over the place we play: Anurag Thakur after India’s withdrawal from CWG

Union Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports Anurag Thakur on Sunday criticised Hockey India’s determination to drag out of the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England subsequent yr, saying that this isn’t the federation’s determination alone to make and that the federal government ought to have been consulted for a similar.
“I think any federation should refrain from passing these kinds of statements. They should discuss it with the government first. It is not the federation’s team that is going. It is the country’s team that goes for an event. In a country of 130 crores, there just are not 18 players who can represent the country. I believe Hockey India should consult with the government and the Sports department,” Thakur instructed reporters in New Delhi on Sunday.
“I have clarified that in such a big country, there just are not 18 players who can represent the country. There is no shortage of talent in hockey in our country. If you see cricket, IPL is goinig on and then there is Wworld Cup. If they can’t play, then why cannot the same be done in other sports? I understand Asian Games is being prioritised, I am not going in this issue, I am just saying where India will be playing just does not lie with the federation, it lies with the government as well,” he added.

#WATCH | On Hockey India’s announcement to withdraw from Commonwealth Games, Union Sports Minister Anurag Thakur says, “India doesn’t have only 18 players. If cricketers can play in IPL as well as the world cup, why can’t hockey players participate in Asian & Commonwealth Games?” pic.twitter.com/rfneturYGL
— ANI (@ANI) October 10, 2021
Politics over vaccination entered the hockey turf when a day after England pulled out of the Junior World Cup, to be held in Bhubaneswar in November, India confirmed the withdrawal of its males’s and girls’s groups from subsequent yr’s Birmingham Commonwealth Games. Both had cited the obligatory 10-day quarantine imposed on travellers from the opposite nation by their governments as one of many key causes for the choice.
In a letter to Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president Narinder Batra on Tuesday, Hockey India chief Gyanendro Ningombam cited the ‘discriminatory restrictions’ which might be ‘biased against India’ as a further cause to drag out of the CWG. Curiously, the announcement got here barely a few hours after the federal government mentioned in a media launch that the lads’s group was ‘likely to participate’ within the event.