K. ARUMUGAM
On Monday India defeated Germany 6-3 in the repeat match of the FIH Proleague’s Mini Tournament at Rourkela. This was a repeat win for the host, having struck 3-2 win on the opening day.
The victory by a heavy margin is being hailed as one of the best shows of Indian hockey. Rightly so as defeating a European powerhouse on any platform does have its merit-ful impact on the collectiveness of Indian hockey, which is perpetually in search of regaining past glory.
Perusal of last 25 years of India-Germany contests throw interesting revelations.
First and foremost is that it is for the first time in the last 25 years that an Indian men’s hockey team struck as many as six goals against Germany. The previous best was 5 goals, that too just twice (HWL 2014 & Tokyo 2021).
Both have played 47 times in the last 25 years. India won just 13 times, 14 less than Germany’s. Seven matches were drawn.
Kindly note the two-match Series they played in the run up to Tokyo Olympics in 2021 is ‘unofficial’ and hence ought not to be considered for any statistical analysis or player caps.
That they played merely 47 times in 25 years is an indicator that they did not engage each other as frequently as with other powerhouses such as Netherlands, Australia etc. In fact, they did not meet 7 out of 25 years!
One aspect that catches the eye is that without exception whenever India scored 3 or more goals, it did not lose the contest, mostly win and sometimes draw.
Another milestone apart from maximum goals by India against Germany in the period in question is that its again for the first time that India won Germany consecutively Sixth time. India keeps up the winning streak started with the bronze in the 2017 Hockey World League Final. The ‘Double Six’ feat is rare for India.
Even Germany did not have such a long spell of victory, ie consecutive 6 times, against India in the last 25 years.
However, Germany won consecutive four matches against India on three occasions in the last two and half decades but India did not allow them further, by breaking them with a draw or win.
Both teams had a few opportunities to play twice in a same tournament (other than bilateral series). There were four such occasions, but there was no clean sweep from either side. This despite the fact that often one side was full of new players. 2009 Punjab Gold Cup is a testimony. A new team of India beat the very raw Germany 2-0 only to see their fortunes were turned upside down 2-4 in the repeat match! Same happened in the Perth 4-Nation Cup (2000), HWL 2014 and 2017.
This is a further proof, despite India’s global ranking which has seen sharp downslides in the FIH tournaments like Champions Trophy, Olympics and World Cup, it maintained a high degree of benchmark performance against Europeans.
One can easily further infer that both played always tight games, most winning margin happens to be a solitary goal!
However, goals in each encounter have seen a steady rise from modest 2 to 3 or more. When the match aggregates went up it marked more success results for India.
India’s nine wins 13 came in the last 10 years, despite not meeting annually once four times.
Therefore, as per the trend, India was on the anvil to bang big and it did on 13th at Rourkela.
Therefore, if numbers are to be believed the arguments on team composition of either side does not cut much ice.