NEW DELHI
Aug. 5: Having spent ten unhappy months in India battling controversy and struggling to do justice to his job as technical consultant for the national hockey team, Australia’s Ric Charlesworth has packed his bags for Wednesday’s flight back home in search of ‘greener pastures’.
Before leaving, though, he made it a point to pose some uncomfortable questions about the future of the sport in the country, blaming the Sports Authority of India and the now defunct Indian Hockey Federation for much of the mess.
“What is the aspiration of a hockey player here? Playing for the country, maybe. But what he really wants is a secure job. He doesn’t think about getting a medal in Olympics for his country, he just wants to earn his livelyhood,” said Charlesworth, whose honeymoon with Indian hockey ended last month following his sudden resignation from the post. “This is where things start to go wrong… you have to take care of the players.”
Charlesworth felt the standard of Indian hockey would continue to decline unless the administrators decided what they preferred— ‘shallow results’ or ‘sustainable performance’.
“India may do well in a one-off tournament in 2009. Everyone will feel happy for a while. But sustainable results? No, that’s not going to happen. It is pretty clear now that India and Pakistan are out of the top six. The first thing they should do is to accept their mistakes and not make excuses and then go about rectifying the grey areas and that’s why I was here,” he said.
New Zealand Cricket’s former high-performance manager is likely to take charge of the Australian senior men’s team now, though he admitted that India’s talent pool was unassailable.
“India still has more resources in the game than any other country by a long way. I have seen hundreds and thousands of very talented youngsters. In comparison, Australia might just have 50. But the focus is incorrect here and the support for the game is sleeping or dying in some places,” he said.
Charlesworth also reacted to the SAI’s claims that till date he had only submitted two reports on his observations during his tenure with Indian hockey, saying that the reports were the only bargaining chip he had.
“The reports are the only basis on which I am bargaining with SAI. But I have submitted all my 10 reports to the FIH and till now I am sustaining on the money I received from them,” he said.
“I knew India would be a challenge. But eventually it turned out to be even more difficult than I thought.”
The highly successful coach, recommended by the world body to help revive the sport in India, said only adapting to modern-day techniques will help improve the standard of the game.
“I never suppress individual brilliance, but India are still using the techniques of the 70s. They must realise that they will have to cater to scientific methods to compete with teams life Australia, the Netherlands and Spain,” said Charlsworth.
“Productive English language lessons and computer training should be introduced in the camps which will not only benefit the players, but also develop them as individuals,” said the five-time Olympian.
“You cannot coach on anecdotes, you need to have some reality,” he added.