Haryana girls will play for Jharkhand in National Games

Jamshedpur, March 26: The Jharkhand State Handball Association has decided to rope in players from Haryana for the National Games.

After initiating the process of registering around six men handball players from Chhattisgarh, the association has plans of hiring as many women players from Haryana. It has initiated talks with the authorities concerned regarding this.

Senior functionaries of the association who were recently in Calcutta to take part in the East Zone Handball Championship, also met top officials of Handball Federation of India. The officials applied for registration of the six players from Chhattisgarh there itself.

Association secretary Khurshid Khan told The Telegraph: “We are initiating talks with the coach under whom the six girls are being trained in Haryana. As soon as they confirm their participation with the state, we would register them as the norm says that only those players would be allowed to play from a particular state who have been registered six months before the event,” said Khan.

A particular state team can only have six players from outside while the rest should be native.

The local body officials are pleased with the performance of the women’s team in the East Zone Championship which concluded in Calcutta recently. While the state men’s team retained the title, the women’s team reached the final of the zonal championship for the first time. The officials said the result boosted the morale of the team.

“The local girls have come up with a good performance in the East Zone Championship and further nurturing would help them perform better during the mega event. In the meanwhile, if the six girls from Haryana come into the team, it would give a fillip to them,” one of the association officials said.

Khan said all the six boys who were selected from Chhattisgarh are basically from Jamshedpur but they have now moved to the neighbouring state in search of jobs.