Home-grown coaches need of the hour: Dilip Tirkey

KOLKATA: Even as the Indian men’s and women’s teams continue to grow and flourish under two foreign coaches, Craig Fulton and Sjored Marijne, Hockey India president Dilip Tirkey is looking to the future and hoping to prepare home-grown coaches who will be able to better handle the junior and then the senior teams.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!Speaking exclusively to TOI, Tirkey said, “We are planning to either send a group of coaches abroad or get someone from outside to come and train them so that they are well prepared to take charge of the Indian teams in the coming days.”While the final list may contain a lot more names, for now Tirkey wants the likes of PR Sreejesh, Rani Rampal, Sardara Singh, Deepak Thakur, Shanmugham P and Vickram Kanth to be part of the training process.

Among these names, Sreejesh has tasted the biggest success as a coach helping the Indian junior men’s team bag a bronze in the junior World Cup held in Chennai-Madurai in December last year. Rampal and Thakur were both in Women’s HIL working with Soorma Hockey Club and Shrachi Bengal Tigers respectively, while Vickram was the assistant coach of Tamil Nadu Dragons in men’s HIL and is part of FIH coaches’ programme.“We also want drag flickers and goalkeepers, who are interested in taking up coaching as a career, to be part of the process,” Tirkey further added.

Women’s team to play Nations Cup in June: After qualifying for the World Cup to be held in Belgium and the Netherlands later this year, the Indian women’s hockey team will have to shift their focus to the Nations Cup that will be held from June 15- 21.The tournament will see India competing with hosts New Zealand besides the USA, Japan, Korea, Chile, Scotland and France. Considering the opponents, it will be quite a challenge for the women’s team as they look to make it back into FIH Pro League after being relegated last year.

To better prepare for the tournament, the team will travel to the US and Argentina next month. Men’s & women’s teams 8th & 9th in rankings: After beginning the year on seventh spot, the Indian men’s hockey team has dropped a place to world No. 8 in the recent rankings published by FIH on Monday. The women’s team, meanwhile, held their place in the ninth spot ahead of New Zealand.Rankings: