‘No mercy, that’s our approach’

After helping India book an Olympic berth, drag-flicker Sandeep Singh aims to see tri-colour going up in London. In a chat with Amit Chaudhary he talks about the art of drag-flicking, handling pressure and more. Excerpts

In hockey, drag-flicker is the most important player. Team’s success depends a lot on him. So how do you perform under such pressure?

There is no player who would go on the field and would not want to perform well. Everybody wants to perform well and win every match for the team. So, same thing goes in my mind too when I play. But when I go in I tell myself one thing that whether I get one chance or 10 chances, I’ll have to put the ball inside the net.

What are the requirements to be a good drag-flicker?

Before being a good drag-flicker you have to be a good ground player because if you are a good ground player then only you will play the match. You can take a drag-flick only when you are on ground. A drag-flicker needs extra training. You are a good drag-flicker when you are good at dragging and flicking the ball. And there is one more important thing, match confidence. It doesn’t matter how strong you are, how well you are flicking the ball if you don’t have match confidence because there are hundreds of people in the stadium, you have match pressure, you can’t be a good player or a good drag-flicker. You need to be daring enough to handle all the pressure.

Before Olympic qualifiers there was pressure of qualifying for the event because the team missed out last time. Now there is pressure of winning the medal and fulfilling the hopes. How is the entire team dealing with it?

In one of my interviews I said that our team is like a family and whatever comes our way we face it together. That support gives us the strength. We are strong from inside like the Jaypee group’s tag line andar se solid (he along with Sardar Singh and Shivendra Singh have been signed as brand ambassadors for Jaypee Cements) . So, in qualifiers we had decided either we would die on the field or qualify for the Olympics. We had no mercy for any team. And we’ll go to London with the same approach.

After qualifiers the team went to Bangalore for preparatory camp but, according to reports, the condition of the turf wasn’t good for practice. Did that somewhat hamper the preparation for the Olympics?

In Bangalore we didn’t practice much. We were focusing on gym training there because after qualifiers we needed to become more stronger physically. We were working out a lot during the past three-four months so we needed to load our bodies. Now, having done that, we will go to Pune and practice hockey till the four nation tournament starts in London.

Several players including you chose not to play in the lucrative World Series Hockey. Is there any kind of regret in your heart to miss the event?

We played regularly for three-four months so our bodies needed some rest after the Olympic qualifiers. If we had played there we could not have rested our bodies. And, the coaches also suggested we should take, say about 15-20 days of rest before we start preparation for the Olympics. We are more happy to have qualified for Olympics.

These days video analysis has become very common. Do you people also analyse opponents during the preparatory camp?

Yes, we also do these things. After every practice session we have these video sessions. There are team sessions as well as individual sessions with the coach. We discuss how to improve as an individual and as a team. Whether we have a short period camp or long period camp, these things are always there.

It seems we are coming back to Indian style. Before Michael Nobbs we heard a lot about different styles of hockey.

I’ll explain it through an example. Like someone is a good writer, he can’t become a good photographer. If you become a photographer you may be able to give your 80 per cent but you certainly can’t give your 100 per cent.

With the same logic we are good in playing the Indian style of hockey. If we play in that style we definitely can give our 100 per cent. But if we try our hands at the European style or any other style we may be able to play well but we certainly won’t be able to give our 100 per cent.

We can see Olympic rings tattooed on your forearm. What’s the story behind that?

I have already played the Olympics but our team didn’t qualify in 2008, although I wasn’t part of that team that was the black day for Indian hockey. So we all had in our minds that in 2012 we have to go. I was in Canada in 2009 where preparations for the Winter Olympics were going on. At that time I felt that I should have these rings on my body and work towards Olympic qualification.