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Former hockey captains favour hiring foreign coach

Former Indian hockey captains Pargat Singh and Zafar Iqbal are in favour of engaging a foreign coach to train the national team.

At a function to felicitate former hockey players in Delhi yesterday, Pargat and Zafar felt a foreign coach is the need of the hour for Indian hockey. But he cannot produce results in two to three months and a long-term approach is needed, they said.

Though both were happy with the Indian team's performance in the just-concluded pre-Olympic tournament in Perth, they had a word of caution, saying the team should not get carried away by the results in Australia.

Pargat said, "We always perform well in pre-Olympic tournaments but when it comes to the crunch games the team falters."

He said that the Indian team always exposed its strategy before major tournaments and suggested it should try different combinations in every match.

Zafar felt that other teams held back the strategy they planned to use at major games while playing in minor tournaments and as such not much should be made of the victory at Perth. He however said the team is shaping well and felt the period before the Olympics should be utilised for working on its shortcomings.

Pargat was critical of the way six senior players were removed after the Bangkok Asian Games. He said one could understand the need to give a chance to juniors to play at the international level. "But such a move could destabilise the team," he said.

Both lamented the declining popularity of the game and said it needed to be marketed aggressively.

Pargat felt the Bangkok Asian Games triumph was a good opportunity to win the attention of sponsors but the Indian Hockey Federation failed to cash on it.

Asked whether involving former players can change the state of game for the better, both refused to comment.

UNI