A New Beginning Awaits Indian hockey

The last year was an eventful one, as far as India hockey is concerned. The pressure was right from the beginning as the players shuffled between countries to play the World Cup, the Commonwealth Games, the Asian Games and the Champions Trophy.

The Sardar Singh-led team garnered praise at every tournament and the world saw a considerably better India team.

However, today is a different phase and as the Indian team are readying themselves to play the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in Malaysia from April 5, their first national duty this year, it is the beginning of a new chapter in Indian hockey as another foreign coach enters the arena.

Indian hockey’s on and off tryst with foreign coaches isn’t a new one. The Terry

Walsh saga last year, captured attention of all the hockey fans. Now, with the coming of the Dutch Paul van Ass, all eyes will be on him as he takes over a team which has raised the bar of expectations after a good run last year.

Paul van Ass knows the huge responsibility he has been bestowed with, especially to deliver in a country which believes in instant results. No wonder, even before he formally joined the team for practice on March 15, he had already done part of the homework, as he mentioned in one of the interviews.

An advantage for Paul, a former coach of the Netherlands team would be to work with his fellow countryman Roelant Oltmans — Indian team’s High Performance Director — who had been sweating hard with Terry Walsh to build up a ‘process’, as duo said, for the future of Indian hockey.

Paul van Ass is known for taking strict decisions; his call not to include the Taeke Takema and Teun Noojier, the T&T of the Dutch hockey in their national camp had raised many eyebrows. But this time, with around 15 days to go for the Malaysian outing, the pressure will be more on the new coach than the team.