Chronicling Indian hockey in an Olympic year key had all along been a painful exercise and 2004 was no different. More efforts were put in, more public money was spent, but all went into drain and, as if the pain was not enough, nobody wants to take even stock of the situation, least of all owning accountability. Indian hockey is where it has been – at nadir – despite hype and hoopla it coasted all through the year.
As never before in its 76 years of International hockey, India lost more matches than it won in 2004, conceding more goals than it scored and still worst failed to win any medal in any of the 14 events in which it participated. This certainly is a record, a country playing in 65 international matches in a year at senior level. The picture is clear and complete when one attempts to compare the results of 2004 against the 2003, wherein India won four of the six events it participated, just figuring in 28 international matches. Junior Asia Cup alone stand to our memory in 2004.
In 2004 India played 37 matches more than 2003. Sponors, Government of India and even the International Olympic Committee pitched in with funds. But at the Olympics, defeat came virtually in Tsunami proportions. More participation, aimless and arbitrary, certainly cost the public money in a big way, but not even genuine attempts to reasons out the defeats were made. Of course, if anybody does not know that, they cease to be an Indian hockey fan.
After the 2002 World Cup every hockey playing nation set the Athens Olympics as their target and tried to better their performance. But, instead of consolidating the gains of 2003, Indian adminos lived in their world of own. Neither did they allow the players to settle nor the coaches. They could not even comprehend, and make a clear demarcation between, a senior and junior national team. They shuffled the players and swapped the coaches for no reasons, and in the end the rolling stone gathered no mass.
A cartoon in a vernacular magazine depicted the scene very aptly. Even as a person was falling from an aeroplane, a commoner says to another: “Indian hockey coach dropped!” How shameful it is to think of changing a coach three weeks before the Olympics and then once the inevitable failure occurred, has the temerity to say the new coach did not have much time to improve! Could there be anything as stupid as of this ever heard in the international sports scene?
It’s more painful to hear from the horses’ mouth that India lost in the Olympics because of seniors. What is that phobia about seniors? A player is selected solely because of his or her form. Age of the player is secondary. Why, then, to segregate the playing bloc’ saying one part is good and the other is bad.
Just because India won a last match at the Olympics – constant feature of Indian hockey that always play well when nothing at stake — the officials shouted ‘eureka’. Nobody wants to take a lesson from first six matches, but a mantra was taken out from the inconsequential seventh match! Because, it suits their wonted escapism, the art perfected by the powers who knows only to hang on to chair and what if the hockey goes to hell.
If Olympic defeat is the core of 2004, what strikes any judicious watcher is the officials’ brave efforts at diverting the issues and the success they met. With surprise announcements and uncalled for media events (I for once do not refer to intimidating mediamen here) authorities could easily inundate events without allowing any room for meaningful analysis to take place in public domain. Foremost is the announcement of team for the Pakistan test series even before the Olympic hockey event was over which has effectively scuttled the outpouring of public anger on the shameful defeats in the Olympic arena.
The IHF President Gill’s recent interview to DD news squarely seeks to blame the seniors for the Olympic debacle. Training in a desert for a month, selecting the team with freeloaders, sacking of the coach on the eve of the Olympics were not the reasons behind the debacle, we were told, that it was because two of the 16 players happened to have played more than 300 caps! And, no problem the likes of Juan Escaree, as senior as that of our Pillays and Dhillons, still mesmerise the hockey world. For sure, we do not have videos to study the likes of Escarees. An article right said, Indian hockey lives in dark ages.
Other defeats are equally humiliating but the failure to make genuine efforts at the Olympic is unpardonable. But surprisingly the authorities proved to be thick skinned. See the depth to which India plummeted in 2004: Ireland 3 India 2; Belgium 3, India 1; France 3, India 1; last rung at the Canberra 4-Nation Cup, Sultan Azlan Cup, every visiting team won the Home series, save Spain, and what is the fun in extending the sordid stories.