KARACHI, Sept 15: Indian skipper Dilip Tirkey and promising penalty corner specialist Sandeep Singh on Thursday said defective pitch had been hampering their performances in ongoing Super Hockey League. “It sometimes seems to be useless to earn penalty corners as bumpy pitch is a big hurdle in scoring goals on penalty corners,” Sandeep told Dawn.

The turbaned Sikh was vocal about the Hockey Club of Pakistan (HCP) synthetic surface, saying it had several patches owing to which he had not been successful on penalty corners.

“The pitch is problematic and not ideal for such an event. Although left side is more troublesome, the problem is at both sides. But the left side is the worst.

“Although ball stoppers of my side are doing their best to stop the ball, it is because of uneven pitch near the circle at both ends that the ball doesn’t stop. Most of the time stoppers fail to stop the ball for the striker. This situation is certainly depriving short corner specialist like me of scoring goals,” Sandeep, representing Shan-e-Punjab, complained.

Tirkey, playing for Sindh Qalandars as penalty corner striker, agreed that uneven surface of the pitch near the circle had been causing problems for penalty corner strikers.

While Sandeep criticized the sub-standard pitch, he was also critical of the umpiring standards, saying “biased decisions have marred the league, sometimes depriving deserving teams of victory.”

“It is not only the pitch, but poor umpiring has also cost us dearly. We are not even awarded penalty corners on the foul which should have been a penalty stroke. I am positive that umpiring in the league is sub-standard. There are several decisions that lacked wisdom,” he complained.

Suggesting remedy, Sandeep said league might have gained more credibility had the organizers invited some foreigners as neutral umpires.