Varkey may miss Azlan Shah hockey

Qaiser Mohammad Ali

The Indian hockey team will need to polish and master penalty-corner conversions if it is to win the 2002 World Cup, said Indian Hockey Federation K P S Gill on Monday, a day after India overcame Japan 4-3 at Edinburgh to finish fifth among seven countries that qualified for the World Cup.

Gill warned that the team would have to work hard on penalty-corners and goalkeeping if it wants to do well at the World Cup in Kuala Lumpur, from February 25 to March 9, 2002.

"Our penalty-corner conversion was very poor at Edinburgh," Gill said. "The number of penalty-corners we failed to convert was very high. We need to work on this aspect. But overall the team's performance was all right."

The qualifying tournament at Edinburgh was won by Argentina. Besides India, the other countries that made it to the World Cup are Spain, Poland, Belgium, Japan and New Zealand.

Gill is also not happy with India's goalkeeping. "Our goalkeeping requires a lot of improvement," he said. "We will now have a special camp for the World Cup."

However, Devesh Chauhan, who tended the goal at Edinburgh, has been retained for the 11th Azlan Shah Tournament to be held in Kuala Lumpur August 2-12.

Four other players who represented India at Edinburgh and have been included in the 18-member squad for Azlan Shah Tournament are full back Dilip Tirkey, midfielder Bimal Lakra, forward Daljit Singh Dhillon and forward Paramjit Singh.

Forward Sabu Varkey has an eye infection and is unlikely to go to Malaysia.

Gill, however, said mercurial forward Dhanraj Pillay, one of the few stars Indian hockey has produced in recent times, would not be a candidate to replace Sabu Varkey. "I do not think there is any chance of him replacing Varkey."

Pillay, who has had a love-hate relationship with Gill, did not attend the preparatory camp for the Azlan Shah Tournament in Jammu after he and some other sportspersons reportedly received kidnap threats from Kashmiri terrorist group Lashkar-e-Tayiba. The Lashkar denied making the threat.

Pillay has played for India in three Olympics and was a member of the team which won Asian Games gold in 1998, after a gap of 32 years.

India was once considered a hockey giant. It has won the Olympics eight times, the last time at the truncated Moscow Olympics in 1980. But the standard of the game has gone down drastically in recent years, and officials say poor penalty-corner conversions and poor finishing have become a bane.

Indo-Asian News Service