Let’s not dump hockey into the dark after London

The Azlan Shah Hockey tournament showed up the Olympic-bound Indian team with all its chinks and follies. It also showed up a few good things, like hard work and improvement quotient, among its players. But, most importantly, it told us in no uncertain terms something that has been staring us in the face, something we have doggedly refused to acknowledge — that there’s a next to nothing chance of an Olympic medal for Indian hockey this year. It is a sad fact, but true — unless, of course, a miracle makeover happens to India’s players and playing style.

A nuanced fan of our national sport would not consider this to be the doom and gloom of a sport that was in its golden era quite some decades back. From the ignominy of an Olympic absence in 2008 to now, a lot of hard work has gone into the sport by our players and coaches, both of whom have had to fight the administrative mess in Indian hockey no one is ready to clean up. In the scenario, when you see the players play their hearts out despite their limitations, this time on the blue bouncy turf, you feel like applauding them nonetheless. For, without much support from the game’s head honchos, financial, technological (one knew for long that a blue surface and yellow ball would be used for Olympics but the practice turf has just been laid in India) or otherwise, coach Michael Nobbs and his band of boys have worked tirelessly to defeat the odds.

Indian fitness levels have never been great and usually that is blamed on our genes. Considering that nothing much can be done to alter genes, the next best thing is to obtain whatever is the optimum fitness for us. Nobbs has been working on that for a long time but the recent camp before India went for the London test series recently, focussed mostly on this Achilles heel. At London this July-August, India is already in the Group of Death (Pool B). We have to compete with none less than world champions Germany, defending champions The Netherlands, Belgium, South Korea and New Zealand. In last week’s show at Malaysia, India lost to the Kiwis who are considered one of the weaker teams in world hockey. Belgium, too, have improved a lot in recent years and India lost to them in the Champions Challenge final. As for Germany and Holland, they are way ahead of the Indians in speed, fitness and adaptation to modern hockey and are, thus, the impossible teams to beat.

The London test event was a reality check for us, and the reality looked quite peppered, more black than white. Yes, India did go down fighting to Great Britain but could do little against the other two top teams Australia and Germany.

Under the circumstances, India at best should be expected to improve its positioning from the last Olympic games which it played way back in 2004 and experts are pitching for a sixth spot as a good spot for this year’s edition.

All things that need to be said about the Indian hockey scenario have been said a thousand times. We all know we need an honest administration, we need a whole lot more infrastructure, we need systematic grassroots training and we need to adapt to modern playing style and technology. Small bits are being done to at least take care of the money bit, considering the Sahara Group has invested a whole lot of crores into the game. How this money will be used up for the betterment of the game and its players remains to be seen but the track record of our game managers has, till now, been woeful if one were to modestly put it.

It is still a long haul and it is in this difficult terrain that hockey needs to evolve. One must understand that there is life beyond London because that’s where all the on-going improvements can be cemented. If we perform well at London, it will be an awesome achievement against all odds. If we don’t, we should know we were defeated by something that we still don’t possess for victories in big events.

One thing is for sure though. We must not blame our players too much for what happens at London. They are working hard and a little bit of indulgence and time-giving can be good in the long term of the game. It would be hurtful for hockey if we dump in the bylanes of extreme criticism if the team returns medal-less from London.

For, London or no London, hockey is in a resurgent phase after it fell from its high horse way back in the past. It is time that the two warring governing bodies of hockey merged their differences and instead of turning down millionaire babies like the World Series Hockey (WSH), did something for the uplift of the game.

The WSH tournament, in which the administrators did not allow top team India players to try their stick at practice and money both in one go, carries a $2 million prize money which makes it the richest hockey tournament in the world! So why not cash in on such opportunities, like the IPL has done so skillfully and so systematically. The hockey players who played this year’s month-long WSH under the eight designated franchises earned good money, some making up to $40,000 this season — and that’s besides the prize money.

It was criminal, thus, to forcefully keep away our top players from such a good opportunity which could have boosted their morale as well as their pockets which have long run dry, thanks to the state of the game in which they live and play to win some and lose many.

Source: The Sunday Pioneer, 3 June, 2012