Indian coaches should get more recognition: Sports minister

Sarbananda Sonowal 

New Delhi, Sep 25 (IANS) Joining the foreign versus Indian coach debate, Sports Minister Sarbananda Sonowal Thursday said the cricket team's recent success in the limited-overs tournament in England under Ravi Shastri can be taken as an example and applied in other sports as well.

"I fully agree that Indian coaches should get due recognition as we have a lot of accomplished domestic coaches as well as some great former players," Sonowal said on the sidelines of a sports event here.

"Look how our Indian cricket coaches (referring to Ravi Shastri and Co.) did well recently. We should follow the same line in other events also."

India had won the five-match One-Day International (ODI) series 3-1 against England earlier this month after the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) designated former captain Shastri as the director of the team, following the squad's dismal 1-3 loss in the five-match Test series.

Sonowal also defended the ministry's decision to send the national football team to the 17th Asian Games where the Sunil Chettri-led side has been eliminated in the group stage.

"Football is a very popular game in the country. I have seen that sports lovers in our country want football to be promoted. We would be having the U-17 FIFA World Cup in India in three years time. That's the biggest event happening in the history of international football," added the minister.

"We have to produce international class footballers and for that we need to promote the sport in a bigger way." Sonowal also hoped that India will be able to repeat their 2010 Asiad performance where they won 65 medals.