‘Harendra Singh has a good chance to be India coach again’

With the exit of Graham Reid put up the disappointing outcome on the lately concluded World Cup in Odisha, Hockey India’s (HI) major process is to nominate the subsequent chief coach of the lads’s nationwide hockey workforce.

With the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Video games – qualifying match for the 2024 Paris Olympics – solely seven months away, hiring a coach on the earliest for the Olympic bronze medallists is a precedence.

The Nationwide Sports activities Federation (NSF) has already marketed with February 15 being the final date of submitting functions for the vacant put up. Amongst a number of overseas coaches, one title doing the rounds is former India coach Harendra Singh.

“The Pro League and Asian Games are the two major events this year. We are focussed on the latter as winning the event will get India an automatic berth in the Paris Olympics. We have many names for discussion and Harendra is among them,” a key HI functionary mentioned on situation of anonymity. “Harendra has a proven track record with the junior team and has a good chance to train the Indian team once again.”

Harendra guided the Indian males’s junior workforce to victory on the 2016 Junior World Cup following which he was made coach of the senior workforce too, teaching them until the 2018 World Cup the place India exited within the quarter-finals. He was additionally coach of the 2017 Asia Cup gold medal profitable Indian girls’s workforce. Harendra was changed by Reid in 2019.

Nonetheless, the 54-year-old Harendra, who’s at the moment the pinnacle coach of the US of America males’s workforce, refused to remark however not earlier than advocating for an Indian to teach the nationwide males’s workforce as he felt that homegrown coaches have higher understanding with gamers.

“Look at the teams in the recent World Cup where most teams had their own coaches. A homegrown coach for India is a must as he has better understanding of every individual as our players come from different backgrounds, culture and environment,” he mentioned.

He steered that for technical experience HI ought to appoint a excessive efficiency director. “For that job I would love to see Australian legend Ric Charlesworth once again. I have worked with him and find him the best person for this post. Where all the world’s coaches stop thinking, he begins from there. The man is a master in getting the best out of players,” he mentioned.

Harendra additionally praised former HI president Narinder Batra for giving an enormous fillip to Indian hockey for the reason that 2010 Commonwealth Video games (CWG), including that the Hockey India League (HIL) must be restarted because it helped Indian gamers achieve expertise of rubbing shoulders with high Europeans and Australians.

“Undoubtedly, Batra has taken Indian hockey where it is supposed to be. India’s recent journey stated with the 2010 CWG. We saw professionalism, money, maximum exposure. HIL was a big plus as our players got to learn many new things,” he added.

Harendra steered launching a brand new home league and in addition the revival of state hockey leagues. “I am saddened to see the poor state of hockey leagues in states like Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. If we have regular domestic leagues like Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, we will have a huge number of players across the country. See the strong domestic structure of foreign teams as they spot talent through that setup,” he mentioned.

Terming the conduct of Nationwide Championships in all age teams simply as an ‘annual truthful’, Harendra mentioned HI ought to divide the home construction in 5 zones as North, South, West, East and Central and conduct leagues as it could hold our gamers busy for 8-9 months a yr. The league would additionally then function a range system.

“Observe the sample of Ranji Trophy cricket the place all groups are geared up with high coaches, physios, video analysts, masseurs, yoga lecturers and so forth. The revival of academies can also be a should as the sport has modified completely and our home coaches ought to learn to connect science with the sport. In India we use an outdated system and our home coaches neither need to study the significance of science in hockey and its correct makes use of,” mentioned Harendra.