Which team is in rebuilding mode at Melboure

When the Indian hockey team won their first match of the Champions Trophy against England, it was called a fluke. When they won the second also against New Zealand, it was called luck. When they lost to Germany in the third match, cynics said the team’s standard was only this much.

Then they beat Belgium in the quarterfinals and the most common statement heard was, “European teams all go into rebuilding mode after Olympics, so all the teams must have brought their junior/second string teams.”

However, that’s not true. A look at the teams participating in the Champions Trophy throws up some interesting figures. All the teams at the Champions Trophy participated at the London Olympics, and finished above India. Germany were the champions, Holland second, Australia 3rd, England 4th, Belgium 5th, Pakistan 7th and New Zealand 9th.

As for being young sides, there is another interesting statistic: England have six of the players from their Olympic squad in Melbourne, Australia have 10, New Zealand 9, Holland 8, Belgium 10, Pakistan 11 and India 9. Only Germany, to some extent, have a really young side, with just three players from their Olympic squad. Also, of the 9 Indians from Olympics, four made their debut in 2012, just before the Olympics.

The team India play in the semifinals – Australia – have two players with more than 200 international caps and six others with more than 100 games experience. Only two players have less than 50 matches against their name. In contrast, three of India’s players are making their debut here, two others have played just two games and only six players with more than 50 caps. Is there any need to further explain which team is in rebuilding mode here?

Unfortunately, Indian hockey has itself to blame for this situation. Every time the team has done well, it is immediately followed by some controversy or the other, which highlight the negatives and overshadow the positives.

In 2003, when the Indian team came up as a strong competitor, intra-team rift was the cause of downfall. That and the bruised egos of officials who could not bear the fact that players were getting media attention and were, in turn, highlighting the difficult conditions in which our players lived.

Then, in 2004, just before the Olympics, Indian team lost its coach and got Gerhard Rach instead, a non-entity about whom no one had ever heard of before and who came, disrupted the team and left.

In 2008, the federation was dissolved and we are still suffering the after-effects of that decision, taken by a few people with vested interests. In 2010, the team had their best chance of winning an Asian Games medal but lost out, coach Jose Brasa already on his way out after his contract wasn’t renewed.

In 2011, the team won the Asian Champions Trophy, and came back to complaints of being paid peanuts for the win. Again, the win became secondary, the controversy became important. As for the Indian media, it is only happy to highlight the ‘poor, pitiable conditions’ of the Indian hockey players and turn everything into a controversy. For the record, most players who are part of the national side are not dirt-poor, pitiable or wallowing in misery.

One only hopes that, at least this time, the officials don’t goof up because of petty egos and allow this group of youngsters to come up and develop into world-class players and a well-gelled team.