India: Batra raises hockey's age-old issue again  x12
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| India |
July 24, 2005 
Times of India, India
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DARRYL J CRASTO
MUMBAI: The hockey battle, now on for quite some time inside the federation (IHF), got an interesting twist on Sunday, with Narendra Batra, a senior vice-president of the Indian Hockey Federation, picking up another piece of 'evidence' to stump the IHF chief KPS Gill.
Amidst a series of allegations against Gill, Batra has now come up with a revelation that could have serious repercussions not just for the sport in the country, but one which could cause considerable embarrassment to the Government of India.
Batra has claimed that India sent seven overaged players to the recent Rabo men's under-21 Junior World Cup event in Rotterdam, Holland, and charged that "manipulations to the ages of the players (sic) was done at the behest of senior IHF officials".
Batra says his sources have informed him that VS Vinay, probably the best player of the tournament, was 24 years and six months old, Hari Prasad 23, Vivek Gupta and Vikram Kant 22, Navpreet 21 and two months, Ajitesh Roy almost 22 and one of the two Senthil Kumars __ R or G __ who played in Rotterdam were also overage.
It is a very serious allegation and Batra stands by his claims. Speaking to the TOI from Jammu on Sunday, Batra said: ''I am in possession of documents which prove the age of these players. What I have are documents of the past four years -- they have been accepted and given the stamp of authenticity by the IHF."
When reminded that by revealing the names of the players, he could have already caused considerable harm to them, Batra replied, "Without mentioning names, it would seem that I was just shooting my mouth off. But the fact is I know who is responsible for this mess," he said, in an obvious reference to the two officials.
When contacted, KPS Gill, who was driving down from Chandigarh to Delhi, said: "I haven't seen the letter since I have been out of Delhi. What I did see in Chandigarh, through an agency report, was that Batra, according to his own averment, does not have his information right. His statements are rather vague.
"For one, he is assuming that the cut off date for eligibility is June, 2005 when the date set by the FIH is 1-1-2005. He doesn't seem to know Ajitesh's date of birth. Moreover, he does not know which Senthil Kumar went to Rotterdam. He has said that it is either R or G but, in fact, it is the youngest whose initial is N. "Thus his information cannot be relied upon. Three of the seven players he has named are already in the clear as far as I know. That leaves just four... we will have to investigate,"Gill said.
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