More astroturf and tough games can turn around Indian hockey: Oltmans

Ranchi: More matches against tough opponents and increase in number of astroturfs would help the Indian hockey in making a turnaround and bring back the golden days, Indian Hockey team`s High Performance Director Roelant Oltmans said on Saturday.

"I believe (that) India has a bright future in hockey. Of course, there are number of things to be changed and it is good that people are willing to do that," Oltmans told a leading agency here. "First we need to add to the number of artificial turfs in the country... In fact our programme should be redesigned and education programmes for coaches should be changed," he added. Expressing satisfaction with the Indian hockey team which jumped three places to world number eight within a year, Oltmans said that though it was a "better" achievement, the team had to go a long way. "We are number eight in the world. We were 11th when we started a year ago. Now we are in the top eight... That`s a good job," the Dutchman said. "But we still have a long way to go to bring back the glory," he said, adding, that the consistency of the team was also required. He pointed out that there was a real need to change in a couple of areas for players to improve and match the skills of the best teams in the world.