With the National team without a head coach for more than a year, Indian stars Saurav Ghosal and Joshna Chinappa had to rely on injured teammate Harinder Pal Sandhu for coaching advice en route their historic triumph at the Asian individual squash championship in Kuala Lumpur.
Though Sandhu, who is recovering from a serious back injury, did really well for a makeshift arrangement, National coach Cyrus Poncha did not travel with the team for one of the more important events of the year.
When asked why Poncha did not travel, especially when the team doesn’t have a foreign coach since March 2018, Indian squash federation (SRFI) president Debendranath Sarangi sounded clueless. “National coach Poncha was very much with the team,” Sarangi said.
However, the players confirmed they had not seen Poncha around during the competition.
Poncha had told last month that the SRFI had decided to rope in foreign coaches on an event-to-event basis rather than having one full-time.
A foreign expert was supposed to travel with the contingent to Kuala Lumpur but Sarangi said he is still awaiting sports ministry’s approval on the appointment.
Choosing not to comment on the coach-less conundrum, Ghosal said it was good to have Sandhu by the courtside.
“He is my best friend and knows my game inside out. I had spoken to David Palmer (his personal coach and former World No.1) before the final and Sandhu knew what he had discussed. He knows what I can do on the court and it surely helped me,” Ghosal said.
Harinder Pal Sandhu.
“It was a good coaching stint for him but it is something he can explore after retiring from professional squash,” he added.
Joshna too credited Sandhu and physio Dimple for keeping her in good shape.
“Honestly, it was amazing to have Harry (Sandhu) as coach. He is an active player who could not take part due to his injury but was really professional as a coach. He in fact started preparing with me one week in advance and being my mixed doubles partner, knows my game really well,” she said.