Players of Gangpur Hockey-Odisha at a practice session. Picture by Uttam Kumar Pal

Bhubaneswar, June 9: Hockey Gangpur-Odisha, the new team representing the state at national championships, has started winning titles and hearts.

The team has been successful in various national tournaments in the senior men, sub-junior men and women categories.

The success story of a few-month-old team began when Hockey Gangpur-Odisha took their first step by organising a state-level coaching camp at the astroturf hockey complex in Kalinga Stadium in October last year, one month after becoming an associate member of the Hockey India.

The team is the brainchild of the state’s stalwart hockey players such as former national team captain-turned-MP Dillip Tirkey, former national skippers Ignace Tirkey and Prabodh Tirkey, Olympians Lazarus Barla and William Xalxo, former women’s national captains Jyoti Sunita Kullu and Subhadra Pradhan. It is now aiming at spotting talents from the tribal areas.

“Our players clinched three major national titles between March and May that include 4th Hockey India Senior Men National Championship (Division B), Sub-junior Women National Championship (Division B) and Sub-junior Men National Title (Division B),” said secretary Debasish Gouda.

Many talents emerged from the team’s first national-level outing such as Rinki Kajur, who received the best player award for the tournament in sub-junior women and Sanjay Xalxo, Pratap Lakra and many more in sub-junior men category.

“We are lucky to get great coaching and practice infrastructure. We will try to win in the upcoming tournaments, too,” said emerging talent Kajur. The coaching for all categories is looked after Lazarus Barla, Bijay Lakra and Amulya Bihari and camps are mostly hosted at Panposh (Rourkela) and Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar.

Named after the Gangpur estate that included a major portion of districts such as Deogarh, Sambalpur, Jharkhand and Sundargarh, the team’s players have been selected mostly from these areas. “We also have some of the top names such as Birendra Lakra, who played Olympics and the ongoing Hockey World Cup as well as Roshan Minz and many well-known names in the senior team,” said Gouda.

After this initial selection of youngsters from the hockey cradle of Odisha, players from other tribal areas such as Koraput, Rayagada and so on will be scouted, said an official.

The teams are practising for the Nehru Gold Cup to be hosted between October and November.

When asked if they are a competition to the decade-old Hockey Odisha with which many top players have shown resentment in the past, Gouda said the Gangpur team was rather complementing them. “This year, Hockey Odisha again won the Sub-junior Men National Championship (Division A) for the fourth consecutive year. They also emerged runners-up in the Junior Men National Championship (Division A). We are just another team to help more hockey talents represent the state and there is no question of competition. Now, each category has 36 players taking part from the state in the nationals,” he said.