Bhaskaran, Ramandeep confident

Onkar Singh in Delhi

Vasudevan Bhaskaran, coach of the Indian hockey team which left for Australia Thursday morning, is confident of his team doing well in the forthcoming Olympics at Sydney. However, he refused to predict anything about the outcome of the hockey competition there.

"The tournament is going to be tough. I would not venture to predict anything," said a rather aggressive Bhaskaran, who fielded questions from newsmen with an air of disdain just before the team boarded an Air India flight.

He lost his cool when a scribe asked him if he is making use of modern techniques to take stock of the teams India will face in the pool matches.

"I have been coaching the Indian team for the last so many years and naturally I have been making use of modern techniques. You should know how Bhaskaran teaches his boys. It seems you know nothing about hockey," he screamed.

He denied that there is any rift in the team after the reinduction of the senior players who were sacked sometime back because of lack of discipline.

"There is no team that would be perfect. There are grey areas in all the teams. We have worked out everything and there should be no problem in handling the team. The team that has been given to me has both youngsters as well as the experienced players. The team is hardworking and the boys are putting in their best effort. I am happy with their performance. We are going in early to play on similar tracts like the one on which we will be playing our first match (against Argentina) on September 17. I hope we will be in good form to face the challenges from the other teams," he said.

In contrast to Bhaskaran's attitude, team captain Ramandeep Singh was a picture of confidence and handled questions with the ease at which he tackles on the field.

" We are in a tough pool. We have Spain, Korea and Australia in our group. These are tough teams. I admit that the competition is tough but our team is capable of winning on any given day. We are not afraid of any team. While the three teams that I have mentioned would be tough to tackle, we are not ignoring Poland either," Ramandeep said.

According to him, all the boys are giving a hundred per cent. "The whole team has been playing together for sometime now and they have been combining well both on and off the field. So we should have a coordinated team while the tournament is on. Dilip Tirkey is being given special training in executing penalty-corners. We have improved our field play so that we do not lack in the killing spirit when it comes to putting the ball into the net," he concluded.