SAI starts camp for women hockey world cup

PATIALA: The Sports Authority of India (SAI) and Indian Olympic Association (IOA) have been asked to select the women’s hockey team for the upcoming World Cup in Rosario, Argentina later this month.

The existing selection committee has been asked to select the squad for the World Cup on August 13-14.

Indian women’s hockey was rocked by a sex scandal recently when a fringe player had raised sexual harassment allegations against chief coach MK Kaushik, who was sacked there after and former international Sandeep Somesh was appointed as the new coach.

Somesh and Modi are the two coaches who belong to the few among the staff to get a call-up from the Sports Authority of India.

The players had appealed that Somesh and Modi were their choices, as both of them had been the support of the team, right from preparing strategies to analyzing their strengths and weaknesses.

The sports ministry has also included the names of former captains, Pritam Siwach and Sandeep Kaur, in the coaching staff for the camp, at the National Institute of Sports (NIS), here, which started on Tuesday.

39 probables have been called for camp. Pritam Siwach is Arjuna awardee, who led India to the silver medal in the 1998 Asian Games, and Sandeep, who was skipper for the 1998 World Cup, are among the four coaches with the team.

After the sex scandal, the players demanded the removal of some of the coaches but requested that Somesh and Modi be retained.

The government observer for women’s hockey, Rupa Saini, has replaced Madhu Yadav, who is also a selector, as team manager.