Savita, Bichu rivalry competitors actually wholesome: Adrian D’Souza

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Mumbai: The Covid-19 pandemic made Adrian D’Souza, the previous India hockey goalkeeper, realise what he had been lacking for a number of years — getting again to the sport he beloved. So, he started making movies on Insta Dwell and Fb analysing the nuances of goalkeeping.

Indian ladies’s hockey staff goalkeeping coach Adrian D’Souza with goalkeepers Savita Punia (R) and Bichu Devi Kharibam. (Hockey India)

“From there to have come here, I feel blessed,” he stated.

By right here, he means with the senior nationwide ladies’s staff as its goalkeeping coach. India’s victorious Ladies’s Asian Champions Trophy (ACT) marketing campaign in Bihar’s Rajgir in November was D’Souza’s first event in that function. The 2004 Athens Olympian couldn’t have been happier with the beginning in an occasion the place India conceded simply two objectives throughout seven matches.

The Mumbai-based D’Souza took a peek into ladies’s hockey within the nation final yr when he started his teaching journey with the Indian sub-junior girls and boys. Shifting into the senior group this yr, with the concentrate on goalkeeping and defensive construction as a part of ladies’s head coach Harendra Singh’s staff, was a giant “stepping stone”.

“The biggest challenge was knowing that you’re not only going into the national team, but the women’s team. I have been so used to being with the men’s team through my career, but when you see the potential women’s hockey has in India, it was phenomenal in Rajgir,” D’Souza stated. “For me, it was also a lot of learning. You have to think on behalf of, in my case, four goalkeepers. But that’s where I can bring in my experience.”

A recent to India’s retired star goalkeeper PR Sreejesh — the double Olympic medallist is 4 years youthful — D’Souza understands the worth of wholesome competitors and hearty camaraderie amongst goalkeepers within the nationwide group. Savita Punia, the vastly skilled custodian who was additionally captain, has been that undisputed determine manning the submit within the ladies’s staff for a number of years whereas Bichu Devi Kharibam has performed the understudy.

D’Souza stated it was a aware resolution to rotate the 2 within the ACT by the quarters, one thing the boys’s staff has been doing usually. Throughout sure match simulations in coaching periods, D’Souza received all 4 goalkeepers within the core group — Madhuri Kindo and Bansari Solanki being the others— to play 1 / 4 every.

“It (rotation) has been going on for a while since I joined. It’s something we can’t turn overnight, but we’re looking at it from a long-term view of the World Cup in two years. What if the main goalkeeper is injured for that and the other isn’t ready to play in a big tournament? So it was a conscious call to get two goalkeepers ready to perform. And if the bonding is good between goalkeepers, it pushes you to do better each day. Like it was with Sree (Sreejesh) and me,” D’Souza stated.

D’Souza additionally sees that bonding between Savita, 34, and Bichu, 24. “Competition between Savita and Bichu is really healthy. Both have their strengths. Savita will always be there with her experience, and also of controlling the defence. Keeping her fitness in mind, she is working really hard to be agile. And whatever little opportunity Bichu is getting, she is delivering. That only helps the Indian team. Nowadays in modern hockey, you’re mostly giving equal opportunities to both goalkeepers. We can’t have Savita, and then the rest who are not quite there yet.”

D’Souza stated Madhuri and Bansari are additionally displaying progress in an increasing expertise pool of girls goalkeepers. Hockey India’s goalkeepers programme, by which D’Souza held quick clinics in varied SAI centres and academies throughout the nation, helped him scout goalkeepers “coming in in good chunk”. That, he reckons, is down to at least one man. “Sree has brought a new face to goalkeeping, where someone now wants to be a goalkeeper because Sree was one. It’s nice to see that as a former goalkeeper.”

The launch of the ladies’s Hockey India League — it began in Ranchi on Sunday — albeit with simply 4 groups for now, may even play a job in tapping into that goalkeepers pool. “You saw what happened after the men’s HIL began. I was part of the franchise when Harman (Harmanpreet Singh) joined us,” D’Souza stated. “The experience of playing with the best in the world and the opportunity to learn and grow is unmatched. I’m sure the women will get a great boost from it.”