Hindustan Times: Hockey India to hire development group coaches after 2018 Commonwealth Games horror show

Hockey India is likely to hire two coaches two coaches to take care of its ‘development group’ in both the men’s and women’s categories following the team’s poor show in the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast.

In a bid to ensure quality training of its core group players, Hockey India (HI) is likely to hire two coaches to take care of its ‘development group’ in both the men’s and women’s categories. The two will work at national camps in coordination with the senior team coaches — Sjoerd Marijne and Harendra Singh.

The move is being seen as an offshoot of India’s dismal performances in both men’s and women’s sections at the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast. Both the teams finished fourth. The ‘development group’ feeds players, in the event of injury or casualty, to the core group.

An HI insider said that the move to have separate coaches for the ‘development group’ was conceptualised as it is not possible for one coach to handle 48 players at the same time. He said that this will spare senior team coaches, who can concentrate on training their wards for the Asian Games and the World Cup.

The HI official said that the Gold Coast disappointment had made the think tank aware that it was high time quality training was given to the senior team ahead of the Asiad, given that “a gold there would give us the ticket to the Tokyo Olympics”.

The men’s team camp begins on Friday at the Sports Authority of India centre in Bangalore and the list of 55 probables, which will be pruned to 48, includes experienced midfielder Sardar Singh, forward Ramandeep Singh, defenders Surender Kumar, Birendra Lakra, Dipsan Tirkey and Nilam Sanjeep Xess, among others. Good performers in the men’s Senior National Championship (A and B divisions) have also been inducted.

One of the Hockey India selectors said on condition of anonymity that ignoring the seniors for the Gold Coast Games had proved costly. He said that overall there were 250-300 entries in the rival citadel at the Commonwealth Games but only a dozen-odd goals were scored, which showed the team’s inexperience. Seasoned players wouldn’t have availed quite a few of those chances, he said.

He said that blaming coach Sjoerd Marijne alone was not justified and that players should also take the blame.

LIST OF PROBABLES

PR Sreejesh, Suraj Karkera, Krishan B Pathak, Vikas Dahiya, Jagdeep Dayal, Rupinder Pal Singh, Harmanpreet Singh, Gurinder Singh, Kothajit Singh, Varun Kumar, Surender Kumar, Amit Rohidas, Birendra Lakra, Dipsan Tirkey, Nilam Sanjeep Xess, Jarmanpreet Singh, Gurjinder Singh, Amit Gowda, Pardeep Mor, Anand Lakra, Manpreet Singh, Chinglensana Singh, Vivek Sagar Prasad, Sumit, Simranjeet Singh, Nilakanta Sharma, Lalit Upadhyay, Sardar Singh, Hardik Singh, Manpreet (Jr), Somjeet, Raj Kumar Pal, Amon Mirash Tirkey, Dharminder Singh, V Veerthamizhan, Akashdeep Singh, Mandeep Singh, Gurjant Singh, Ramandeep Singh, SV Sunil, Dilpreet Singh, Sumit Kumar, Mohd Umar, Abharan Sudev, Mohd Raheel, Pardeep Singh, Ajay Yadav, Armaan Qureshi, Sukhjeet Singh, Gagandeep Singh (Sr), Harish Mutagar, Abhilash Stalin C, Kartik Yadav, Pravakar Minz and Maninderjeet Singh.