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Late change in field hockey roster sparks row

A late change in the Champions Trophy field hockey schedule to meet the demands of television drew criticism from rival coaches yesterday.

Hosts India turned the schedule around on a request by national broadcaster Doordarshan, who wanted all matches featuring the home team to be played at 6:30pm instead of the original prime time 8pm slot.

The needle clash between arch-rivals India and Pakistan, the big draw of the six-nation event, has been advanced to Sunday from next Wednesday.

German coach Bernhard Peters was livid after being told his team will now play tomorrow's opening match against Olympic champions Australia.

"The last-minute change is a joke. In no sport would such a thing happen. The original program had us playing Spain in the second match of the day. Now we are suddenly burdened with the first game," Peters said.

"We prepared for a schedule, trained accordingly and concentrated on our first two rivals Spain and India. Now suddenly we have Australia and the Netherlands to deal with first. It is crazy," he said.

Dutch coach Roelant Oltmans was equally critical.

"I am not happy at all. It is a very unprofessional thing to do but I suppose we have to live with it," he said.

Indian Hockey Federation secretary K. Jyotikumaran defended the rescheduling, saying the rules permit the program to be changed to suit television requirements.

"The International Hockey Federation would not have allowed us to make the change if it was not allowed," he said.

"We were able to sign up with Doordarshan only on Wednesday morning and immediately got down to making the changes. It is part of sport," he said.

Spain's Dutch coach Maurits Hendricks was not impressed.

"It is high time we all had a serious chat with the International Hockey Federation, which has shown total disregard and disrespect for the players," he said.

"We had spent months preparing for our opening two games against Germany and the Netherlands as per the original schedule," Hendricks said.

"We also agreed to play a practice game against India because we were to play them at the end of the tournament. But now, everything, including the match timings, has been changed. I am very unhappy about it," he said.

Defending champions Spain play India on the opening day and Olympic gold medalists Australia on Sunday.
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