Former India Kalwalpreet Singh, who is leading the Sher-e-Jalandhar charge in the ongoing Premier Hockey League, says his new found love for drag flick would take him back to the national side. His reason behind the optimism is his recent stint of training he had in The Netherlands.
As long as he played for India, which was curtailed with him suspended for indiscipline in the last PHL, he was taking direct hits in the penalty corner drills. Whether it is Afro-Asian Games or Sultan Azlan Shah Cup, he has been fairly successful too. In fact, both Dilip Tirkey and Kawal were our direct hit takers post 2001.
Now being out of national duty, he spent from his pocket and went to The Netherlands and had about two months training under Toon Siepman, a known drag flick exponent. He says it has done him a world of fortune. I scored five goals out of six penalty corners in the recent All India Police Games. I feel comfortable and ease in putting the ball in the net more than any point of time in my past career”.
Probably, Kawal feels his chance as no drag flicker in the reckoning for the national side, what with poor run of Raghunath and chief coach Joaquim Carvalho’s inexplicable exclusion of Sandeep Singh, who seemed to be doing this role in a better and sophisticated way.
Coming back to the curious case of Kawalpreet, even as he was talking to this writer about his come back chances, National assistant coach MP Singh called him and put him through the drill. For time being at least, Kawalpreet was in the national camp.
Who knows he may back in the side as a drag flick expert soon. There is certainly a slot vacant, let us better watch out what waits us in the coming weeks.