India men's hockey team to work with Dr. Calder to improve hand-eye co-ordination

New Delhi, Nov 14 (PTI) In a bid to improve players' hand-eye co-ordination, Hockey India has roped in renowned South African eye specialist Dr. Sherylle Calder to work with the men's hockey team till next year's Asian Games, chief coach Craig Fulton told PTI on Friday.

Calder, who specialises in hand-eye, foot and body co-ordination, is the go-to woman for some of the top athletes of the world.

Her EyeGym programmes have helped improve the performance of elite athletes such as golfer Ernie Els and Mercedes F1 driver Valtteri Bottas.

Born in Cape Town and raised in Bloemfontein, she has also worked with the South African rugby and cricket teams.

"We will have a strikers camp, goalkeepers camp and hand-eye-specialist Dr. Calder will be working with us in December in Cape Town," Fulton told PTI in an exclusive interview.

"She is specialised person in improving hand-eye co-ordination. Before any decisions are made you need to be able to see the ball, see what's in front of you and it's the ability to train that and react faster.

"Hand-eye co-ordination is everything to do with goalkeepers, with hockey players. Like being a cricketer watching the ball out of the hands, you have a split second to make a decision, so we we are working on that in the build up to the World Cup and the Asian Games.

"She will work remote mostly, sometime online and sometime on the field. Starting December she is going to work with us till World Cup and Asian Games. It's a online skill session which the players have to complete and when needed she will join the team," he added.

Fulton, also a South African under whom India won a second consecutive bronze medal at the Paris Olympics, has now trained his eyes on a podium finish in next year's World Cup to be jointly hosted by Belgium and the Netherlands.

"The ideal goal is to win the World Cup, every tournament we go to, we want to win. Realistically we need to see where we are ranked in the world, right now we are seventh in the world, so we also have to make some improvements in the next 6 months to be competitive on the world stage," he said.

"But at the same time we want to win every tournament we play in. Yes we will love to win the World Cup and are preparing for it but realistically where we are now we have some work to do and we know that.

"If we want to win the World cup, we need to beat six teams above us and all those that follows us. I am being pretty pragmatic about it. I am pretty confident that we can put in a very good preparation block and be ready for the World Cup.

"With the right preparations and lesson learnt, we can beat any team on our day." Talking about his long-term goals, Fulton said: "The long-term goal is to qualify for LA (2028 Los Angeles Olympics) and podium at the World Cup and the short-term goal is to prepare the team as best as we can for Azlan Shah." Having stamped their authority in Asia with the Asia Cup title in August this year in Rajgir, Bihar, Fulton now wants his side to replicate the success at the world stage, particularly Europe. "We have shown that we are very very strong in and around Asian competitions. We have won the last four Asia tournaments. We have got a good receipe and consistency in Asia.

"Then we jump across to Europe, we play the European teams and it's a little bit tougher. 5-6 teams in Europe are in the top 7 and that's where we have challenge ourselves. So going into World Cup and Asian Games year, we are going to play all sorts of opposition around the world.

"What we have to do is to work on defence, in and around the D and obviously final third, our attacking play. We need to convert our chances more, we are one of the best pressing teams in the world." India have fielded a relatively inexperienced side for the upcoming Azlan Shah Cup Malaysia, resting quite a few senior players like regular skipper Harmanpreet Singh, Manpreet Singh, and Mandeep Singh among others.

The coach said the tournament will give youngsters much-needed exposure and game time which they need.

"What is does is that it gives the younger players an opportunity to play a tournament. A full tournament, we are looking at it as a development tour, not as a competition results tour.

"That makes sense. We are allowing a lot more development where we are looking at a group that might come in in 18 months time, possibly if 2-3 of them shine, they can make the World Cup squad and that will be a bonus.

"We are resting some of our senior players, we have got a good core of senior group here," Fulton said. PTI SSC SSC AT AT