Indian women team is all set to sail sea on 5th of this month for their maiden tournament outing. Indian team with goalkeeper Helen Marry at the helm will figure in the 6-Nation KT Telecom Cup in South Korea next week.
The team, consisting of 13 juniors and 5 seniors will be in the company of star teams of Asia – Japan, China and the hosts, and the others in fray include India’s perennial thorn Ireland, England and Malaysia.
“Our objective this tour is to try our best, and finish within top three or four”, said coach M.K. Kaushik, who has been training both junior and senior teams quite some time.
“The five seniors, Jothi Sunita Kullu, Kanti Baa, Helen Innocent Marry, Mamta Kharab and Adline Kerketta will lend some sort of solidity to the team, which is otherwise mostly consisting of inexperienced juniors”.
“Am quite happy with the girls, they respond to the rigorous training schedules and are showing improvement. Some of them still lack in skills and strength, but long camps, the types of things we are having for quite some time, should improve the things more”.
Candidly admitting that the defence where except Kanti Baa other two, Rajwinder Singh and Anjala Barla, are shaky, he said, “ As of now no alternative. What these two new faces require is confidence. We are working on that”.
These girls practice almost six to seven hours in a day at the National Stadium, often playing against men’s team. The other day the Haryana Police men’s team narrowly won a practice match.
Speaking on the prospects Kaushik said that he is not sure of teams that the others would field, first team or second string. “In any case, we should be able to put it across three teams and try for a draw against either China or Japan”.
A videographer, Rajinder Singh from Patiala, will be part of the tour team this time. “We started recording practice matches everyday. We spend an hour after the dinner discussing and dissecting them”. It appears the video sessions helped the girls to rectify some of their mistakes.
Said Sarita Saini, manager, and former international player of repute, “ We noticed some basic flaws in midfielders with respect to their angle of positioning to goalkeepers. This flaw is being rectified with continued video classes.
The team has of late been availing the services of Arvind Chopra, the celebrated former Indian Airlines’ goalkeeper, to improve the quality of goalkeeping. It is gathered the Junior team is struggling to finalise goalkeepers for the Junior World Cup and the induction of Arvind Chopra is likely to solve the problem.
Dr. PSM Chandran will accompany the team as doctor, P.S. Chauhan as assistant coach, besides videographer and manager.
At present 33 girls are undergoing the training camp. The rest 15 girls will continue to practice in Delhi under the watchful eyes of Vasu Thapliyal and Arvind Chopra.