Olympian Jagbir Singh is tipped to be the frontrunner to take over from coach A K Bansal as the Indian Olympic Association’s ad-hoc committee prepares to brief the sports ministry next week on its plans for hockey’s development in the country.

The meeting was scheduled to take place on Thursday but has been postponed to July 30. “We were supposed to have a meeting with the sports ministry tomorrow, but we’ll now meet on July 30. We will give them a roadmap of how we are supposed to take the game forward till 2010. We will also brief them on the team management and administration for the next two years,” ad-hoc committee convener Mohammad Aslam Khan said.

While Khan refused to comment on the coach issue, insiders hint that Jagbir, a former India captain, may replace Bansal despite the fact that the latter guided India to a silver medal at the Azlan Shah Cup in Malaysia and, recently, the junior team to the title at the Asia Cup.

Bansal took the reins of the Indian team in May after chief coach Joaquim Carvalho quit in the wake of the dissolution of the KPS Gill-led Indian Hockey Federation.

However, chairman of the selection panel Aslam Sher Khan made it clear that any such move would be met with stiff resistance. “I think Bansal is doing a great job and there is no need to replace him. For the first time, there is some sort of stability in the team management.

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