Soumyajit, Shamini to lead Indian TT teams

New Delhi, February 14, 2013: A 12-member team, led by national champions Soumyajit Ghosh in the men’s section and K. Shamini in the women’s section, will be representing India in the IITF World Tour Kuwait Open, beginning today in Kuwait City. The same team will later participate at the Qatar Open to be held at Doha from February 20 to 24.

For A Sharath Kamal, who finished runner-up at the senior nationals at Raipur, the two events will be crucial. If he manages to win at least one of the titles his career graph, which had a down swing in recent months, will get a real boost.

Both the events will be crucial for the Indian paddlers as they will form the core of Indian team for the Commonwealth Championships to be held in New Delhi who will later participation. The team is accompanied by coaches Arup Basak and Bhawani Mukherjee.

The teams:

 Men: Soumyajit Ghosh, Sanil Shetty, Sharath Kamal, Harmeet Desai, Soumyajdeep Roy and Jubin Kumar; Women: K Shamini, Mousumi Paul, Ankita Das, Madhurika Patkar, Neha Agarwal, Pooja Sahasrabudhe. Coaches:  Arup Basak and Bhawani Mukherjee. Video Journalist: Anand Syal.

Delhi Daredevils appoint Snape as Performance Coach

NEW DELHI, February 14, 2013: Delhi Daredevils have appointed former England cricketer Jeremy Snape as the team’s Performance Coach for the Pepsi Indian Premier League season. Snape, who is acknowledged to have helped South Africa in its journey as the top Test-playing team, will work with the coaching and support staff.

“We are happy to welcome Jeremy as Performance Coach,” said GMR Sports’ Head (Cricket) TA Sekar. “We believe he has the right credentials to help the Delhi Daredevils achieve its goals. We are sure he will bring in fresh ideas and help the coaching staff bring the best out of the players in a high performance environment.

“At GMR Sports, we want to leave no stone unturned and help the team in its quest to be competitive through the IPL season,” he said. “We are sure that Snape will enable the players be on the edge of their comfort zones as they deliver high performance through the coming season.”

The 39-year-old Snape, who founded one of Britain’s leading Performance Coaching companies, said he was delighted to be joining Delhi Daredevils for the 2013 IPL season. “The mental side of T20 is both fascinating and vital and I look forward to supporting the players and coaches to achieve their ambitions,” he said.

Press release

Navratna Ahmedabad, Silverglades Delhi share spoils on day one of LP Cup

Mithun Perera from Navratan Ahmadabad at the Louis Phillip Cup at the Jaypee Greens on February 13. .

Greater Noida, February 13, 2013: Holders Navratna Ahmedabad began their quest to retain the Louis Philippe Cup Inter-City Golf crown in style with an aggregate score of 6-under-138 to be tied at the top with Silverglades Delhi at the Jaypee Greens Golf Resort here on Wednesday.

The champions, who had surprised everyone with their performance last year, rode on the scintillating 5-under-67 from their Sri Lankan recruit Mithun Parera, who completed a bogey free round, and a sedate
one-under by the other two players – captain Vikrant Chopra and Vinod Kumar – to make a positive start to their campaign in this nine-team tournament.

The Sri Lankan at the sidelines of the tournament said, " Last year when we entered the Louis Philippe Cup, everybody wrote us off as we didn’t have any star golfer in our team but we went on to win the tournament. This year we are the only unchanged team in the competition and our team spirit is high. We are going to fire on all cylinders to win this one again. “

According to the rules of the PGTI sanctioned tournament, the aggregate of the best two performers is only taken into consideration to decide the overall standing and that allowed DLF Gurgaon and Silverglades Delhi to share the top spot despite one of their golfer failing to make a mark on the opening day.

Silverglades Delhi were the biggest beneficiaries of the rule as it nullified the 5-over-77 by Himmat Rai, which could have pulled them down despite the identical 3-under-69 from Shamim Khan and Rashid
Khan.

Trailing one stroke behind them is DLF Gurgaon, who rode on the fine form of former Asian Tour Order of Merit winner Jyoti Randhawa. The experienced campaigner finished the day 5-under with six birdies and a
bogie on the eighth hole. However, his brother-in-law Digvijay Singh and youngster Abhinav Lohan had only a par score to show for their effort and had to settle for the third spot after the first round.

Hosts Jaypee Greens Greater Noida also gave a good account of themselves in their debut season with the man touted to be India’s next big hope, Gaganjeet Bhullar, finished the day 5-under to take his team’s aggregate to 140.

The 24-year-old, who had a very good 2012 season on the Asian Tour, excelled on the front nine scoring three birdies and an eagle on the second hole before a bogey on the eighth pegged him and his team back
in the standings. Sanjay Kumar (72) and R Murthy (73) provided Bhullar the support he needed for the team to remain in contention.

While most of the international stars showed their class on the first day, the experienced Jeev Milkha Singh’s team Shubhkamna Noida had a slow start with his team was languishing in tied seventh spot.

“We have tomorrow’s round to turn around the fortunes of the team and I am sure we will raise our game in round 2,” he said after the day’s play.

Standings: 138 - Navrtna Ahmedabad, Silverglades Delhi; 139-Dlf Gurgaon, 140-Jaypee Greens Greater Noida; 141- AVT Kolkata; 142-Puravankara Bangalore; 143-Shubhkamna Noida, TAKE Chennai; 147-
Dev Ellora Chandigarh.

FIH – HI High Performance Coaching Course to begin in New Delhi from February 16

New Delhi, February 13, 2013: As part of the Hero Hockey World League Round 2 tournament in New Delhi, the FIH and Hockey India will hold a joint high performance coaching course from February 16 to 22.

The course is the second part of a coaching education program for elite coaches who aspire to be high performance coaches. It aims to identify coaches from all areas of India and provide them with advanced coaching tools. Thirty coaches across India will be participating in the course. The first course was held in Lucknow in September 2012.

Tayyab Ikram, FIH master coach, and Siegfried Aikman, FIH grade 1 coach, will conduct the course, which will cover a variety of relevant topics for the participants. Besides the Technical and Tactical topics and advanced methods of play, basic concepts of high performance coaching, different aspect of advanced high performance hockey and its demand from elite athletes, focus of high performance coach, how high performance structure can guide the development process in a country and more specifically in coaching process and methodology will be included in the programme.

In addition, there will be sessions on video analysis and the importance of technology in coaching. Naturally, there will also be practical sessions to go over efficient on-field training methods and tactics.

The group will attend seminars, create presentations, learn video techniques and naturally use the Hero Hockey World League Round 2 games as the basis for analysis and discussion.

Kelly Fairweather, CEO, International Hockey Federation (FIH) said FIH is proud to be a part of this initiative and is confident that all the participants will have a fruitful experience. “I would especially like to thank Hockey India for their collaboration on the course” he further added.

Tayyab Ikram appreciates Hockey India for taking such initiative of continuing this high performance coaching course for the coaches in India. I think this initiative will help to institutionalized hockey in India. “In the first part of this course conducted at Lucknow last year, we got a very good response from all the participants and I am expecting a much better response this year, as it will help in improving the level of sport in India” he said.

“We welcome FIH for conducting the second part of this coaching course in India. It will be a learning experience as well as an opportunity to gain Level 3 Certification in this three-year course,” said Hockey India secretary general Dr Narinder Batra. “The participants will be able to transfer their new know how to other coaches in their States so that coaching standards are improved.”

Press release