Jasjit Singh Kular, former India player, comes from a family of doctors. Jasjit also appears to possess the ability of diagnosis – at least when it comes to an ill plaguing the sport in the country. The 30-year-old, not in the zone of national team reckoning after being sidelined by an injury in 2018, believes that selection to the National squad must be broad based.

“We must expand the core group from 30-35 to about 70-80,” he said from Jalandhar where he lives.

“It will help create competition for places in the team and keep the players who have played for 5-6 years for the country on their toes. Some players in the national team take their places for granted because the governing body seems to go by names and reputation rather than form and ability. Selections by and large are done by watching the senior national championships. It’s but natural that new players are somewhat behind the existing core group in terms of skills, ability, tactics and fitness. “They lose out when it comes to the final selection of the India squad as established names get the nod yet again.”

“If these new players are given a chance to develop and if their numbers are increased, we could have healthy competition for places in the team and that would mean the regulars would have to prove themselves all over again.”

Jasjit sparkled in India colours at the 2014 World Cup in The Hague, Netherlands, and at the HWL a year later. He scored two goals from drag-flicks against Malaysia in the World Cup that helped India notch their only victory.

Early in his career, he showed promise as a forward but moved to the midfield before finding his true calling as a defender, doubling up as a drag-flicker. Jasjit is also a late bloomer but one who took rapid strides. He took to hockey with focus and intensity only in college as an 18-year-old.

Jasjit caught the eye when representing Guru Nanak Dev University at the All India Varsity championship and it is commendable that he did so despite not attending a hockey academy or participating in any of the sub-junior or junior national championships.

“I picked up skills and tactics on my own as my family frowned upon me joining a hockey academy,” he explained. “Players at these academies focus on their hockey and neglect studies and my family didn’t want my studies suffering in any way,” Jasjit said.

He joined the national camp in Pune in 2011 and remembers being called up for the 2014 World Cup squad as his most memorable moment. “I had suffered an injury a little before the selection and it sidelined me from tournaments. I wasn’t sure of my chances but the coach (Australian Terry Walsh) stood by me and I travelled to the The Hague.”

Another great memory was winning the 2016 HIL title with Jaypee Punjab Warriors.

“I can’t forget how hard we trained and the bonding within the team along with the foreign players,” he said. A not-so-happy-moment, however, arrived in 2018 when he sustained a knee injury at the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup. Jasjit found himself out of the team and vividly recalled the explanation by then head coach, Dutchman Roelant Oltmans.

“ ‘I needed a mentally stronger player’ were his exact words,” Jasjit recalled, somewhat remorsefully.

Sadness also surrounds Jasjit’s village Sansarpur near Jalandhar. “It was once a hockey nursery but it isn’t anything such now. “There’s no trace of hockey there and I was the last player from Sansarpur who played for India. Before me, there wasn’t anyone from the village who played for the country for more than a decade,” he said. “Some famous names like Ajit Pal Singh and Col. Balbir Singh Kular were among 14 who donned India colours and did the village proud.”

There’s a hockey lineage in his family with his father, grandfather and great grandfather having wielded the stick. “My sister Chrisinder Kaur played at the national level for several years but is now a doctor in the army, a profession shared by her husband,” Jasjit revealed.

Jasjit, now employed by Northern Railway eyes the Senior National Championships early next year to stage a comeback to the squad when he represents Indian Railways.