Baskaran back as men's hockey coach

Former Olympic gold-medalist V. Baskaran has been named the men’s national  team coach by Hockey India (HI) on Wednesday. He will assist chief coach Terry Walsh.

He has already joined the training camp in Bhopal where the team is preparing for the FIH World League Finals to be held in 2014.

“Our team has been making steady progress under Roelant Oltmans. Along with Walsh who has already taken charge, HI wants our Indian coaches to learn latest methods and techniques from these experienced people,” said HI secretary general Narinder Batra.

“Both Indian coaches, Baskaran and M.K. Kaushik, will now have a duty to take Indian hockey forward. India cannot just depend on foreign coaches all the time. Soon, I expect them to be equally competent and good like the others in the world,” he added.

However, Baskaran who has coached the Indian team before, is happy to be back. “It is a pleasant comeback for me with the senior men’s national team. It will be excellent to work with Walsh for the betterment of Indian Hockey,” he said.

Baskaran captained the Indian side which won the gold medal at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. He has 287 international caps and has represented India in two World Cups – 1973 Amsterdam (Silver) and 1978 Buenos Aires.
Under him, India played 187 matches including Sydney Olympics (2000) and two World Cups – in Utrecht(1998) and Germany (2006). Baskaran is also an Arjuna awardee and a Padma Shri.

Women’s coach dies in mishap
India’s senior women’s hockey team coach Inderjit Singh Gill on Thursday passed away in a fatal road accident near Sangrur in Punjab. Gill was also part of the coaching staff of the senior women’s team that won the silver medal at the recently concluded third women’s Asian Champions Trophy in Japan.