More exposure tours for women’s hockey team
Manuja Veerappa

Bengaluru, April 30: The 2010 Commonwealth Games. That is the single-minded focus for most sporting events in the country right now.

The Indian Women Hockey Federation is no different and is channeling all its resources into putting up a good show at the Delhi Games next year.

IWHF secretary Amrit Bose, who is in the city to oversee the selection trials which begin on Friday, said, “We are trying out various combination of senior and junior players in exposure tours so that we are well prepared for the Games. Off the 48 in the camp, we will pick 30 players for the core training group.”

Apart from the U-21 Hockey World Cup in August and a four-nation tournament in June, the team will also travel to Canada and Germany on exposure tours.

“We want to try and get the girls to play abroad as much as possible. We need to play with the best teams to produce results,” said Bose.

In a couple of months from now, the IWHF will merge with the IHF in accordance with the International Hockey Federation’s guidelines. The confederation will then be known as Hockey India.

On the role of the women’s wing in Hockey India, Bose said, “It will be a properly formed unit and there will be no room for discrimination. We will work as a single unit. It will have a positive effect on women’s hockey. In fact, in a week’s time, we will launch a women’s hockey website, which will be linked to the Hockey India website when it is launched.”

Despite their best efforts, there hasn’t been an explosion of talent on the national circuit.

Blaming the administrative set-up in the country, Bose said, “The number of tournaments at the grassroot level has dwindled. The state governments, especially the education departments, have to take up the initiative to promote the sport.”

Bose also called upon the national players to be more responsible.

“In the European countries, players are more responsible and they stick to the regime given to them even when they are not in camps. This is not the case with Indian players.

“Although we give each player a workout schedule they have to follow when they are not in camps, they hardly follow it. For the team to do well, each player has to take responsibility for their fitness and performance,” she said.

The Asian Age