Pano Mardi and Poonam Roy

Jamshedpur, Nov. 9: A quirk of fate has landed city teenager Pano Mardi a slot in the 16-member Indian women’s handball team for the XVI Asian Games to be held in Guangzhou, China from November 12 to 27.

Pano can look forward to moral support from Poonam Roy, a coach of the handball day boarding centre at the local St Mary’s English School. She has been appointed coach of the national women’s squad.

The Indian outfit left for Beijing early today.

A resident of Narwapahar, the 18-year-old Pano was nowhere in the reckoning to start with, but injury to some players earned her a call to the national camp at Amritsar. It enabled her to display her prowess on the turf, smashing in goals as a striker.

“Pano was on the reserve list of probables for the Asian Games. But she was drafted into the camp after some probables failed to turn up due to injuries and personal reasons. Pano grabbed the opportunity and now she is off to China,” said Khurshid Akhtar Khan, secretary of the Jharkhand Handball Association (JHA).

Hailing from a tribal family, Pano has represented Jharkhand in the under-19 national championships. She subsequently graduated to the senior level, but still appears for the colt outfit. “She’s extremely talented and hardworking. We are very optimistic about a good show from her in China,” Khan, himself a former handballer, told The Telegraph.

The youngster, a product of Tata Steel Handball Training Centre, is one the key players in the state outfit.

Poonam, a former handballer who represented undivided Bihar in national competitions, has also fought her way to the top echelons of the game. Besides being games teacher of St Mary’s English School, Poonam also handles the affairs of the government-run day boarding handball centre. She’s credited with shaping the careers of several handballers.