New Delhi: The Indian ladies’s hockey staff will look to show a brand new leaf on the Asian Champions Trophy starting in Rajgir, Bihar, in a brand new sports activities advanced on Monday. The staff has gone via a turbulent part in the previous few years. Their gutsy efficiency on the Tokyo Olympics the place they got here near profitable a historic medal earlier than ending fourth couldn’t encourage them to larger heights. As an alternative, they slipped to a brand new low and did not qualify for the Paris Olympics.
India’s ladies’s staff hockey coach Harendra Singh. (PTI)
When Harendra Singh was given the reins in April, he inherited a staff that was not solely combating self-belief and accidents, however gave an impression of a disintegrated bunch. Harendra, along with his huge expertise of teaching each the lads’s and girls groups and in addition the US staff, realised that he might want to put in loads of work on and off the sector and convey a few change within the staff tradition.
“I felt somewhere it (team unity) was missing and I spoke to them in detail. But I also told them what happened in the past. I am not going to discuss it. I want to start from zero. “I have come here to support you. I will support and guide a player-driven programme.” If there’s a goal in our course of, then methods to obtain that concentrate on,” Harendra informed HT.
“I told them, “we will provide you with all the facilities and tools which can make you winners. Of course, in this journey there are a lot of girls who will come and go. Only the girls who have the maximum oxygen intake will survive. The one who has new energy; one who wants to start from zero will go on this journey,” says the previous participant.
To start out with, Harendra says he has stopped forming a management group within the staff. Each nationwide camper is identical for him, insists the coach.
“There is no senior and no junior for me. I have stopped making the leadership (group). For me the girls who have entered in the first camp and those who are playing in their 10th year are the same. They are all representing the flag of India.
“Everyone has the capacity to be a leader. Not that I depend on the four or five (players). I am here to support all 33 players.”
That, nonetheless, no manner signifies that skilled gamers won’t be valued within the staff. “There is no substitute for experience and it will be taken care of. But that experience you have to impart along with the upcoming players. Then, I will say, “yes, you are experienced”.”
It’s with this contemporary method that Harendra needs to make a brand new begin with a ‘talented’ bunch of gamers. The final seven months he has been working behind the scenes, permitting the gamers the time and area to return out of the gloomy part within the aftermath of lacking out on Paris Olympics qualification.
Harendra has handed the captaincy to Salima Tete, the dynamic midfielder from Simdega, Jharkhand. Salima is simply 22 however has over 100 worldwide caps beneath her belt together with the expertise of enjoying in an Olympics. She may have the duty to encourage the staff on the pitch. Apart from defending champions India, Paris Olympics silver medallist China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia and Thailand will compete within the occasion.
Harendra, who is worked up to start out this new part in his house state of Bihar, can be keenly watching the gamers, their health ranges, camaraderie on the turf and talent to return good in crunch conditions. Fashionable hockey, he feels, has utterly modified and there’s no set sample on the sector.
“What suits the player and which position she is playing in (matters); accordingly, the team has to adjust. Indian players are skilful with the stick; that’s their attacking strength. But you should know when to use it and create opportunities for using it.”
Having coached the USA males’s hockey staff for 3 years, Harendra noticed how the US system works. “USA’s strength is not only the coaching. It is also documentation, periodisation and how to get out 102% from the players – mentally, physically and emotionally.”
He needs the gamers to take duty. “I want my players to come to me and ask questions. You have to challenge yourself, why and how we are going to do this. Yes, I give them a comfort zone to open up. At the same time, I have to be a tough taskmaster. Because we are investing huge resources, we cannot be sitting and pampering each other and thinking we will get there. This pampering business has been going on. This will be a slow journey, and a tough journey.”