Riding is always a riddle in some metros. You need to think you own the road, choose your line, without caring for the other road-users. You, especially if you’re driving an auto-rickshaw or a two-wheeler, have the right of way no matter what happens otherwise on the road. You have the right to speed when you want, brake when you want, cris-cross lanes when you want, take sharp turns (without enough indication) when you want, and expect the other road-users to follow you. If the other guy stays out of your line, he knows the rules. If he comes in your way, he’s absolutely at fault.

Now, why rave and rant the common irritant on roads most of us are used to by now. Simply because, Indian hockey’s fortunes depended on, or should I say declined due to, such a phenomenon.

The events you’ll see this week, the concluding part of my chronicles, saw India approach the Olympics with fantastic, fool-proof plans. Only that not one of those strategies took into account what your rivals might be upto.

Yes. India were impeccable in their planning, but thought the rivals will remain mute spectators. India were meticulous in their approach, but thought the opponents will watch them and applaud. India went in to each Olympics with ‘solid and sound’ training, but thinking the opponents would have worked, worked out lesser.
Every time India prepared, played and returned empty-handed from the Olympics, one only got reminded about the proverbial cat which closed its eyes while drinking milk and thought nobody was watching.

India, during these Olympics, had three of the most intelligent coaches, yet failed to finish in top-5 for this simple reason. There were quite a few setbacks on the field like Argentina’s shock win at Atlanta and an equally shocking draw Poland enforced at Sydney, but the bottom-line of all our failures was the lack of vision to study the opponents and adapt according to the situation.
Having said that, I must reiterate, Indian hockey continued, and continues, to be a major force in the scheme of things at any Olympics. But not having to call the shots like our predecessors did is something that’s difficult, and bitter, to swallow.

Also coming into play in this situation is the selection of players. How could some one skillful and resourceful as Ashish Ballal be constrained with only one Olympics, when a lot lesser likes played more than two? How could someone as talented as Sabu Varkey be limited to only Atlanta when quite a few, lesser talented, played more? How could a phenomenon like Dhanraj Pillay be never named as captain, when he has been the moving force on three of four occasions he’ll play the Olympics (Athens will be the Bombay Bomber’s fourth)? Perhaps in answering the questions right lies the key to future of hockey in India.

1992 Barcelona

AFTER the 1988 Seoul debacle, the IHF fell back on Balkishan Singh, who had won the 1980 gold to coach the National team. And thus came the advent of ‘total hockey’ into the vocabulary of Indian hockey fraternity. What this total hockey is nobody has understood totally so far, but at that point of time it was the buzz word in Indian hockey.

As if to vindicate Balkishan’s coinage of the term, the Indian team’s build-up to the Olympics was euphoric. India played more than 25 matches during their build-up and lost only one! And thus India were considered favourites for the gold at Barcelona.

But what nobody, including Balkishan or any of his team members, realised was while going on the onslaught before the Olympics India had exposed all their cards to the hawk-like eyes of the Europeans. Where the others chose to play their cards very close to the chest and fine tuned any flaws in their systems, India went full blast exposing their armoury of weapons much before the Olympics.

As a result when India played at Barcelona, the opponents were expecting and prepared for, even the most delightful of maneouvres India would enact.

A team which went into the Olympics with a phenomenal win-loss ratio thus ended up with a negative goal difference for the first time in history.

India began disastrously with a 0-3 defeat to eventual gold medalists Germany, and thence were always on the backfoot. Scrapethroughs against Argentina (1-0) and Egypt (2-1) ensured we didn’t go win-less, but defeats to Australia (0-1) and Great Britain (1-3).

According to Jude Felix, the vice-captain of the team: “The team peaked early and was not fresh for the Olympics. To elaborate… we did a lot of unwanted training after the European tour and before the Olympics.
“There was no team spirit or focus once we lost the first game. And also some of the players had become unfit between the time we reached the Olympic village and our first game.”

Indian team at Barcelona: Pargat Singh (C), Jagdev Singh, Jude Felix (all Rlys), Ashish Ballal, Anjaparavanda Subbaiah, Mukesh Kumar, Jagbir Singh (all Indian Airlines), Cheppudir