Onus on Tirkey to lead hockey India charge

Hockey India (HI) could not have been in better hands. A modern-day great, Dilip Tirkey is the first-ever player to head the administration of the game’s national body which came into existence in 2008. The country’s most-capped player, he comes with an impeccable track record. The 44-year-old has his task cut already. Tirkey played in an era when Indian hockey had hit a low and fought hard to revive the game.

With the experience of 412 international matches and three Olympic appearances, he is aware the country needs more artificial turfs apart from focused programmes in talent scouting, training, and sports science, so that the next generation of players are fit to take on extremely competitive teams. He also wants to focus on the National Games, and fuel passion back at the grassroots in Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, which have produced gems for the country. His stint as chairperson of the Odisha Hockey Promotion Council will also come handy as he played a key role when the Naveen Patnaik-led government threw its might behind the game’s revival.

Tirkey’s ascent to the game’s national body also signals Odisha establishing itself as the hockey hub. How can one forget the Odisha CM‘s gesture of a `150 crore five-year sponsorship for the national teams when Sahara pulled out in 2018, leaving HI at its wit’s end? Now ready to host back-to-back the Men’s Hockey World Cup, the state is building India’s biggest hockey stadium in Rourkela. The government is also starting 20 training centres with artificial turfs across Odisha. While it is pumping in `875.78 crore for sports infrastructure in Bhubaneswar and Rourkela, a high-performance centre in the state capital, operational since 2019, has been driving the elite players’ programme, having roped in experts. Exclusive sports hostels for hockey apart, the Odisha government has plans to introduce dedicated academies for other sports disciplines, which speaks volumes of how far a state can go to promote sports as an agent of social transformation.

When the men’s team won bronze in the Tokyo Olympics, ending a 41-year-old medal drought, Naveen’s role was firmly in the spotlight. Now with Tirkey at the helm of Hockey India, Odisha will aim for glory in a sport that it has lately owned.