Indian hockey players work on English language, read books, engage in team bonding games

Locked inside SAI centre due to COVID-19 forced restrictions, Indian Hockey players are utilising ir free time to hone ir English langu skills, reing books and watching ir favourite movies. Indian men and women hockey teams are practicing at SAI centre Bengaluru where unauthorised person can enter campus.

Despite uncertainty over Tokyo Olympic Indian hockey teams are following ir rigorous training schedules. .Senior member of men's team goalkeeper PR Sreejesh is reing books which were in his wish list for a while.

"Our routine is as usual but we get free time on Sundays and Wednesday evening. We work on fitness and recovery . I have re Da Vinci Code, autobiography of Helen Keller. I have some more books in my wishlist," Sreejesh told PTI Bhasha.

In crisis time, players are also concerned about ir families and are in touch with m through video calls."My far is above 60 and kids are below seven. I have strictly instructed m t to move out of house," said veteran from Kerala. For star forward Mandeep Singh, it is time to improve English and he is taking it very seriously along with ors.

"Wife of Chris Ciriello (team's analytical coach) takes English classes once in a week. We are doing assignments which include reing good English books. I have started reing one book on Olympics," said player from Jalandhar who recently won HI best forward award.Indian women team's experienced goal-keeper Savita gets daily do's and don'ts list from her mor who is in Sirsa, Haryana though her family is assured of her safety and health at SAI centre."We are very safe here as campus is very neat and clean. We don’t want to go out and don't want to get bored eir, so working on invative recreation games based on team bonding. We change roommates regularly to have better understanding between each and every players," said Savita.

Indian women team also joined nation to show gratitude towards health warriors in fight against Coronavirus by clapping toger. video went viral on social media."It was instinctive. We kw how difficult times are. We wanted to show solidarity with nation and also thank those who are on duty against this fight," she ded.Ar player Navneet Kaur said y are following guidelines regarding social-distancing and maintaining hygiene.

"We are maintaining distance and use hand wash and sanitisers. We sanitize gym also before exercise," she said."rmally we used to go out for shopping and movie. Last week we h time so we watched many latest bollywood movues released toger in meeting room which include 'Panipat', 'Pyar ka Panchnama' and 'War'," she said.