So near and yet so far would aptly sum up India’s recent performances in the international arena. India will often go to a tournament with very high expectations but only to come back disappointed. Exactly this is exactly my country’s situation too. We finished above Pakistan in the last Asian Games, but failed to qualify for the September World Cup. This is a shock for us. We sweated a lot in the China World Cup Qualifier last month but in vain.

What happened to India? I played in the Premier Hockey League last year and then led my Club Sapura for Ranjit Cup in Delhi. On both occasions I was impressed with India’s domestic hockey, which is strong, competitive and rewarding. But at the same time I feel this strength is not reflected at the international levels. This year, still worse. India just won a match recently at Monchengladbach and not fared well at the Commonwealth Games either.

And that brings us to the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup here in Kuala Lumpur, which starts today. This is effectively the only big meet India will have before they go to the World Cup. For us this Cup, named after our hockey patron, should help salvage our battered image.

India is in our group and they cannot have asked for a tougher opener — Australia. With Troy Elder’s return, Australia looks awesome. Bukit Jalil incidentally is favourite turf for Elder where he was crowned best Player of the World Cup four years ago. Australians have made winning India and Malaysia a habit. We should learn to break it, but I concede it is a long way.

As an up and coming player, I watched with awe India winning the 1995 Azlan Cup with current coach Olympian Vasudevan Bhaskaran at the helm. He is a thinking coach, understands player’s psyche and is constantly in touch with the game. I can say with a degree of authority that Baskaran believes in scoring goals rather than content with containing the forwards. This approach should be a spot botheration for others!

I witnessed India’s two practice matches here, which it won. The team played much better in terms of teamwork and the players were for once trying very hard to complement each other rather than to hang around waiting for the ball to be relayed to them.

Skipper Dilip Tirkey is back. This Indian team needed his leadership qualities where he was able to ensure that Kanwalpreet Singh, Sandeep Singh and Bimal Lakra kept their mistakes down. The only let down in the practice match was the defence which was slow in their build up. They need to get the ball out quickly to be effective and also to push higher up so that the midfielders can go into attack mode.

Indian midfield is ok, but unless they are willing to go the extra mile in forward play the will get bogged down in deep defence. They also need to speed up their passes and also to go down along the flanks in support of the forwards. They were very effective in the match against the Kiwis when they attack in numbers. But this was in patches.