Hockey players consider hunger strike

Indian hockey players are considering going on hunger strike to protest about the rewards being given to the winning Twenty20 cricket World Cup squad.

National hockey coach Joaquim Carvalho, whose side retained the Asian Cup title this month, said players from the southern Karnataka state were thinking of staging a hunger strike after the state government announced payments only to the Twenty20 squad members from the region.

"We are not upset or jealous with the cricketers, we are proud of them," Carvalho told Reuters by telephone yesterday.

"But where were the same state governments when our players did the country proud?

"We're talking about recognition, not just money. We want to protest against the treatment being meted out to sports other than cricket."

The Twenty20 squad, surprise winners of the tournament in South Africa, arrived in Mumbai yesterday to a grand victory parade before being showered with cash awards totalling $3 million by the cricket board.

The players have been promised houses by the team sponsor while Yuvraj Singh, who hit six sixes in one over against England, was presented with a Porsche.

India won eight Olympic hockey gold medals in the first half of the 20th century but have faded away in the last two decades and have been taken off the government's priority list for financial support.