Indian Hockey Coach Harendra on the verge of removal due to Azlan Cup’s failure: Hockey Update
Indian hockey team’s head coach Harendra Singh will be bearing the risk of his career due to poor performance of his team in the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup that concluded on May 15.
Hockey India’s (HI) development committee is thinking over the removal of both coach and rest of the staff, which were involved in the preparations of the Malaysian Invitational.
This committee is led by Olympian Pargat Singh, who is authorised to take decisions relevant to the matters concerning the coaches. Undoubtedly, sources informed that the committee will be officially asking HI for the removal of Harendra and consider a foreign coach to continue the job.
Among the seven teams participated, India lasted sixth that was disgraceful after considering that the team was two-time defending champion of the Azlan Shah Title.
In the past, it is remembered that Harendra was not the recommended name by the committee for the job and all they asked for was a foreign coach with international experience. However, the same coaching staff as for the 2010 Commonwealth Games and Asian Games, including Harendra, was appointed over the request of the government, whereas the foreign coach Jose Brasa was excluded.
The performance committee will be taking their official actions in a meeting on May 31 where both the coach and the team captain Arjun Halappa.
In the meantime, the Sports Minister Ajay Maken also commented over the team’s performance in the Azlan Cup.
He said, “It is a matter of concern for all of us the way Indian hockey team has performed at the Azlan Shah Cup tournament. We have two most important tournaments coming up —the Champions Trophy and the Olympic qualifiers. And unless we qualify for the Olympics, our dream run to the Olympics would be over as far as the hockey is concerned.”
One of the committee officials also said that they had an informal discussion over how the team did and it seemed they need improvement in many aspects. He also added the fact that since the team lost the match against their arch-rival, Pakistan, they did not seem to recover out of it. It seemed that the coach did not encourage the players, which was one of an important part of his job.
Dilip Tirkey, a former international and Government observer also stuck by this point and commented, “I do feel the coach should have done more to motivate the players. Our performance till that (Pakistan) match was okay. After that defeat, we lost to New Zealand and South Korea in two very important matches. These are the sides we have done well against in the past.”
The highest capped player Tirkey also suggested that in order to end up successful it is necessary to keep a balance between both the attack and defence. The defence is poor and it must be addressed soon.
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