Indian hockey team's goalkeeping coach Dennis van de Pol strongly feels that young custodian Krishan Pathak has matured enough and is ready to replace the peerless PR Sreejesh as and when the veteran decides to call time on his glorious career. Pathak, 25, was standby to Sreejesh in the Tokyo Olympics, where India won a historic bronze medal.
But after the Tokyo Games, Pathak has been a regular for India with both goalies — other being Sreejesh — taking turns to guard the goal in the four quarters.
At 34, Sreejesh is at the twilight of his career, having been India's go-to-man in front of the goal for over 16 years.
"I have worked a couple of times in camps with the Indian team. Back in December in Bengaluru, I worked with nine goalies out of which three are from the first team — Sreejesh, Krishan Pathak and Suraj Karkera," Van de Pol said.
"The goalies from the 2019 batch of India juniors are now in senior group. So there is definitely good plans for the future.
"The other good part is that both the two goalies of senior team -- Krishan and Sreejesh play in quarters. Krishan is much junior to Sree, so he is exposed quite a lot in big matches. So he is the guy for the future. By the time Sreejesh stops, Krishan will still be a young guy with a lot of experience," he added.
He feels India have a strong all-round team to make it to the podium in the World Cup, currently underway in Bhubaneswar and Rourkela. "We have a good, strong team. We have a strong defence. Against England the attack was not that great but the defence was pretty solid, strong even when we were a man down.
"In defending penalty corners, we are really strong. Against England, we conceded 7 PCs, but the goalie didn't have to make a single save as the defence did its job," said Van de Pol, who was formerly associated with the Canadian women's team.