CHENNAI: When Harinder Pal Sandhu sustained a back injury earlier this year, he had put a cross mark against five dates in May. He was going to miss the Asian Individual Squash Championships from May 1-5 in Kuala Lumpur as he wouldn’t be able to get back inside the glass box till August. A month or two later, his world turned upside down. Harinder would be a part of the contingent as coach of the squad.
It’s been four days since the World No 80 returned from Malaysia but he’s still coming to grips about the last two months. From the time it was decided he would coach Joshna Chinappa and Saurav Ghosal to last Sunday when both of them walked away with shiny metal discs around their necks.
How did it feel for the 30-year-old as he watched two 32-year-olds pick up gold medals? “It’s definitely given me a new perspective,” he said. “This was my very first experience at coaching and there are a lot of things that go into it.” It’s important to place on record that Harinder has played this role before but that was when he was part of the playing staff — at the Asian Games for instance.
This was different. To help prepare for this, Harinder spent substantial time pouring over videos and results of possible opponents for the last two months. “When you are in a tournament as a player, you tend to focus on yourself. You sit in the audience to cheer-lead and that’s about it really. But when you go as a coach, you have to be more aware. A lot of thinking and planning go into it. For example, even before the draw, I was seeing videos and results of opponents Joshna and Saurav were likely to face.”
Anybody can watch videos and surmise things but Harinder had to learn what to watch out for. “The way players moved while playing forehands and while using their backhands...was there hesitation in their game if a ball was dropped short. Do they go for long rallies or tend to finish points early... I constantly had to be on the lookout for clues to be able to convey information to Joshna and Saurav.”
He also credited the seniors for placing their complete trust in him. “It helped a lot that I had played this role with them before. But they trusted me completely and that really helped when I was communicating with them.”
Even as Harinder prepares to get back inside the glass box — he reckons he should be back by September — he doesn’t rule out a coaching stint in the future. “This (assignment) helped me to keep the fire burning so to speak. Once my playing days are over, I think I would enjoy this (coaching).” For the time being though, he is itching to get back to playing.