It is pointless talking about past records, because glory fades when it is not self-sustaining. Accustomed to a cycle of defeats since the 1970s, what the Indians need foremost is belief. They have the skills, though their fitness and stamina may not compare with more accomplished teams like Australia. India is ranked 10th in the world, which makes it still a top 10 team.
The last time it was tested against Olympic champions Australia, in the Final of the 2010 Commonwealth Games, India was hammered 0-8. Indians still falter with basic skills. A positive mindset is vital for victory. But if one reviews India’s clash against South Africa in a warm-up game just before the Olympic qualifiers, the old failings were all evident — poor trapping, imprecise passing, lack of power in shots et al. In fundamentals, the South Africans were good.
They should have won, after being 3-0 up. But the Indians clawed back to draw the match 3-3. They failed to clinch a win despite the momentum. Team India is known to tire as games close, and concede goals. After the initial burst in the early game, the Indians were subdued in defence. There was faulty wiring somewhere. But to fight back from a 0-3 deficit to tie the match was creditable.
Let’s go back to the Indian Hockey team’s performance at the Atlanta Olympics. After failing to qualify for the semifinals, they threw in the towel and lost even the classification matches. Unlike the Pakistanis who had a deeply disappointed look after drawing the game with India, the Indian team went on a victory lap as if a draw against Pakistan was an achievement! Much is being said about the emerging mental state of the present Indian team but a sense of acute loss over the decades still permeates the players. It’s here that the need to administer and nurture the game to meritocracy, is most acutely felt.
So, will there be a new dawn for Indian hockey? We have been hearing about revival for long. India has floundered at big tournaments like the Olympics and the World Cup and has not played a Champions Trophy match for a long, long time. The main reason for this is lack of firepower. Indians play hockey more with their wrists than with their biceps and elbows.
This Indian style is attractive, and often befuddles the Europeans, but only victory can guarantee sustained spectator interest in the sport. For victory, the muscular, even if a less attractive, approach to the game is needed. When hockey became like football after the introduction of artificial turfs, the old style of weaves and dodges which adorned the bumpy grass surfaces, gave way to sheer power and speed. The Germans are masters of such setpiece play.
However attributing the decline of Indian hockey to artificial surfaces alone, misses the point. At least some reasons for the sustained barrenness lie elsewhere. At the second World Cup tournament in Amsterdam in 1973, the Indians won silver after allowing the Dutch to recover from a 0-2 deficit in the Final. India lost in a heartbreaking penalty shootout.
This Indian team was playing on astroturf, which it was not accustomed to, unlike the Europeans who had introduced these surfaces, changing the tenets of the game. Remember the sublime and majestic Ajitpal Singh in that game, calmly marshalling the team's resources, as the best centre half in the world? Others like M P Ganesh, Beliappa Govinda, Ashok Kumar, Harcharan Singh and Aslam Sher Khan shone too. That team was superbly fit and tactically astute. What happened so suddenly, for India's record to get tarnished? India came 6th in the 1978 World Cup at Buenos Aires and has not been able to reassert its authority in top tournaments ever since.
Conversely, if India was so good on grass, why did it fail to qualify for the semifinals of the 1982 World Cup at Mumbai?
Possibly, apart from administrative failures, and the failure to tap the catchment area, there is a huge mental black hole too. At Atlanta, India drew against Germany and Pakistan, and won against Spain. It was their best game which came too late, for, they had already lost their semi slot. It was an inconsequential one for the Spaniards who had already qualified for the semis.
They went on to win the silver. At a post-match dinner, the Indian players were distraught but did not seem to have absorbed any lesson from their performance. India conceded a goal against Germany in the dying minutes of its opening game, the match ending in a draw. The Indians could not last the distance then, nor can they now. The Indian style of hockey may still draw appreciation but it has not been able to translate its visual artistry into success. How can we make India like Brazil, which maintains its artistry and flair of football, yet wins big tournaments?
For one, Indian hockey needs support. There were not enough spectators at the India-South Africa game on January 23, 2012. The Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium is beautiful, but it’s empty stands wore a wasted look. In major tournaments like the Hockey World Cup and the Commonwealth Games the stadium did fill up. But that’s not enough.
Apart from sustained public interest, the game desperately needs more sponsors. May be not the sporting hedonism of cricket, where money spins success and failure like two ends of the dice, but money infusion with a “monk's calm,” as India's Olympic shooting champion, Abhinav Bindra, wrote in his autobiography. Bindra used innovative methods to train for the Beijing Olympics, submitting himself to a hermit-like existence, away from distractions. It would be instructive for Indian hockey players to read his autobiography, an excellent treatise on psychological preparation.
In hockey, as in life, austere can also be astute, and it can certainly be agile. Wealth breeds flab and India's hockey players are better off without the flabby wealth of cricketers. But that may be overstating the case, for Indian Hockey desperately needs an infusion of money.
Even the top Indian players do not earn enough from the game to make a career of it. With more sponsorships, Indian hockey can tap resources from a larger pool, as long as the craving for the good life does not take over the sporting part. With Sahara India increasing its sponsorship money for hockey by 170 per cent, other corporate bodies should also come forward to help our ailing national game.
The writer, an avid follower of Indian hockey, is a joint secretary with the Ministry of External Affairs. He has just returned to Delhi after serving as India's ambassador to the Lao People's Democratic Republic. The opinions expressed in this write-up are his personal views and do not reflect the views or policies of the Government of India
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