Haryana ruled out for having over-aged players in Junior National Hockey Championship: Hockey News
The Haryana team was ruled out from the ongoing tournament, MHA’s Junior National Hockey Championship in Mumbai Hockey Association’s (MHA) Mahindra Stadium, yesterday, on May 30, for having about ten over-aged team players, playing the event.
MHA, being the organising body of the Under-17 junior event, directed all the sixteen members of the team to undergo a medical test. This happened over an official protest made by Bhopal’s management, after the team was beaten by Haryana with a huge 1-9
loss. Haryana previously clobbered Kerala by a humongous 13-1 win, in their first match of the tournament.
After the results of the medical tests came in, it was revealed that 10 out of the 16 Haryana players did not meet the requirements of the junior challenge and that the over-aged players were surely more than 17 years old.
The team’s next match is on Monday, June 6, under Pool B against the Hyderabad junior boys, however, their disqualification led to the cancellation of their successive matches.
According to Gurbax Singh, MHA’s Secretary, the results of both the matches played by the defaulter team have gone to waste. Moreover the Olympian commented, "The team has been disqualified and their results have been scrapped. We had declared before the tournament
that we will be very strict on age-cheats. Though it (medical test) is a costly affair, we have no option when such things happen."
In the mean time, two teams Bhopal and Rajasthan have made it into the quarter-finals of the junior national championship.
Bhopal qualified after defeating Kerala by 4-2 and claiming the top position in their pool. Patiala and Pondicherry finished their match at 12-2, making way for Rajasthan into the quarter-finals. Moreover, Chattisgarh defeated Goa by 5-2, which was an eye-opener
because during the first half, they were leading by just 2-0, but in the second half they converted their lead into a win with a three-goal difference. Moreover, Chhattisgarh was already among the top-8 teams of the competition, prior to their match against
Goa.
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