Times of India: Drag race to Rio begins

Rohan Alvares | TNN | Dec 14, 2015

BAI: His drag flicking skills first earned him prominence at the now defunct World Series Hockey, an event where he was crowned `player of the tournament’ in 2012. It’s been three-and-a half years since, but Gurjinder Singh’s talent has evolved and he now has 28 international caps with seven goals to his name.

On Sunday morning, Indian Navy could consider themselves unfortunate to have run into the 21year-old Indian Oil full back at his ruthless best in a quarterfinal tie of the Dabang Mumbai – 50th All India Bombay Gold Cup. With his side trailing 1-2 at the MHAL-Mahindra Stadium here, Gurjinder inspired a remarkable turnaround, firing three consecutive penalty corners in the 50th, 55th and 58th min utes respectively which undoubtedly paved the way for Indian Oil to advance to Tuesday’s semifinals.

Former India captain Dhanraj Pillay , while bemoaning the lack of a drag flick specialist in his Air India side who crashed out of the tournament later in the day, rates Gurjinder highly and says, “He is my favourite. Gurjinder is one of the best (drag flick specialists) in the country at the moment.” The compliment was predictably well received by the young Sardar. “It feels very good when someone of Dhanraj’s stature says something like this. It motivates me to practise even more,” Gurjinder told TOI.

Given the busy schedule that India have for most part of the year, practising on his own often gets difficult. “I practise drag flicks an hour before the team’s training session begins. If I get some time later, I practise more. But the schedule is usu ally pretty busy , so there isn’t a lot of time for practice outside this,” Gurjinder revealed, before elaborating on his daily penalty corner routine. “I do sets of 10 to 20 drag flicks at a time, starting with slow sets and then gradually increasing the speed. I practise with the stopper who hits 10 balls to me.Out of those at least seven must be well struck.(Roelant) Oltmans (India coach) makes note of every detail.”
Gurjinder’s absence in India’s bronze medal showing at the recent Hockey World League Final showing at the recent Hockey World League Final caught Pillay by surprise, but the man himself said it was simply a matter of Oltmans wanting to test out every player within the 26-man probables picked for next year’s Olympics. Despite Indian Oil teammate VR Raghunath and Rupinder Pal Singh being the two senior penalty corner experts in the national side, Gurjinder believes there is enough scope for him to convince Oltmans to take him to Rio.

“Raghunath and Rupinder Pal are two of our star players. The third full back is not a drag flick specialist. So my goal is to try and perform that role well enough so that Oltmans is keen to keep me in the team,” said the soft-spoken defender.

Raghunath’s assessment of his junior teammate’s ability was just as positive as Pillay’s. “If you give him a couple of years, he’ll be a good threatening drag flicker in world hockey,” stresses the 27year-old.