The FIH World Cup is barely three weeks away and the Indian hockey team is going through final round of preparations. The players are busy putting maximum effort to impress the coaches and selectors, who will announce the 18-member squad next Wednesday.
After the WC preparatory tour to the Netherlands, the Terry Walsh-coached side is working on overall development. “With less than 3 weeks left for the World Cup, the preparations of the entire unit here is coming out good and everyone is geared up to take on the challenges of the big platform. While there are many focus areas during the preparations, like introducing new techniques, putting in place strategies keeping the opponents in mind, we are also completely focusing on the development and improvement of each player. The 33 players for this preparatory camp are very good and up to the mark to take on the challenges of the international tournaments,” Walsh told reporters during an interaction with the media on Thursday at the Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium, here.
The coach said that the preparation will be of great help for the players who will represent the country in the Asian Games after the WC.“We are putting more importance on the World Cup and the Asian Games later. All these training processes will help the boys during both events,” Walsh reckoned.“To get to that level will take time. I have spent six month so far with the boys and they have shown marked improvement. They have come a long way. The recent tour to the Netherlands was quite useful for the players. We played some close games and the matches we lost were against top sides and I feel that statistically, the performance was okay. Boys have grown in self-belief. If you talk about long-term development, it will take two years to get to a level where we can give consistent results. On physiological basis, these boys need another couple of years. Not only training, we need to play more with the European teams to be successful ,” the Australian added.
4 players for Arjuna
Hockey India on Thursday announced the names of players and coaches recommended for the National Sports Awards 2014 which includes the prestigious Arjuna Award, Dhyan Chand life Time Achievement Award and Dronacharya Award.Names of striker Dharamvir Singh, defender and penalty corner expert VR Raghunath, Tushar Khandekar and former skipper and custodian Bharat Chetri’s names have been recommended for the Arjuna Award.
For, the Dhyan Chand lifetime Achievement Award 2014, Hockey India has put forward the name of the Indian Women team’s former captain and currently a coach of the Senior Indian Women’s Hockey Team Sumrai Tete and has accolades to her credit.Romesh Pathania’s name who is currently a coach of the Junior Indian Women’s Hockey Team has been recommended for the Dronacharya Award 2014.