The Tamil Nadu State men’s hockey team left on Thursday night for the Senior National (B division) championship to be held Saifai, Uttar Pradesh from April 8 to 21.
Md. Riaz, former India captain and Olympian, who was with the team for eight days during the State camp at the insistence of Chelladurai Abdullah, president, Hockey Unit of Tamil Nadu, said he is confident that the team will do well in the Nationals.
“Given the group (Bihar, Madhya Bharat & J&K) that TN is in, I think they can top it and can, possibly, go further,” he said.
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Riaz said he coached the boys on trapping the ball inside the circle, off the ball running, and how to play collective hockey.
The drawback of the team, according to Riaz, was that since most of the boys from the districts have hardly played on synthetic surfaces, trained as they are on gravel surfaces, their deflections were below par. “So I taught them how to play the ‘slap’ shot as the boys are used only to the push shot,” said Raiz.
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Riaz refused to be drawn into the debate on selectors picking mostly youngsters ignoring the senior players and arguably better players from Chennai.
“I was given this team and I did my best with it,” he said.