‘Indian hockey lacks top-class centre-half’

Australia exposed India’s inadequacies in all departments rather brutally in the final of the CWG men’s hockey. With India’s PM Manmohan Singh watching from the stands, the reigning world champions delivered a lesson to the hosts, who once bestrode the hockey world like a colossus.

Former Indian centre-half Md. Riaz says the 8-0 rout in the final could have been averted had India showed some spine in midfield. “I’m not saying the result would have been different. At least, the score-line would have looked respectable,” he said.

Riaz said India’s coach Jose Brasa should have moved fullback Sardara Singh up the field. “Sardara is the only player who looks capable of commanding the midfield in the current squad. But his talents were wasted in defence. We didn’t have a player to control either the ball or the game in the middle,” he explained.
Sardara, according to Riaz, has the skill and stamina to man the midfield with authority. “In the final he had the energy to chase Australian forwards even when he lost the ball. India had hardly got near the Australian goal. The reason was we lacked a distributor in the class of Sardara in the attacking half. Another big problem for us on that day was we left acres of space for them to attack from all sides,” he added.

The centre-half is a critical position in hockey. Much like the creative midfielder in football, he is the inspiration to his team. Riaz said India’s recent travails could be attributed to the absence of an inspirational centre-half.

On the forthcoming Asian Games, Riaz said India’s strategy would have to be match-based. “For instance, China, South Korea and Japan have a similar style, which places emphasis on speed. We can’t afford to go for an all-out attack against these teams. Our focus should be on hitting them on the counter. Pakistan, who are in our group, and Malaysia have different game plans. Brasa will have to plan his strategy according to the strengths and weaknesses of our opponents. He can’t give a common template to his players for all the matches,” he added.