London to London: An excursion into Indian hockey’s 64 years of Olympic hockey.
Ignorant Olympians, and rigid mindset ran havoc
In a week’s time Indian men will be playing first of their seven matches in the London Olympics. At this juncture one cannot escape from reminiscing what happened seven decades ago when the World War ravaged England hosted its first Olympics – in 1948 – at the same city.
England hosted the 1948 Olympics to re-assert its identity and superiority that came under severe attack due to ever-ending World War II.
At the same time, Indian men’s hockey team had got a godsend to assert its identity and superiority that came under re-test due to two factors.
Firstly, the same United Kingdom that missed out three earlier Olympic hockey numbers due to the fear of losing to their ‘colony country’, had to face the inevitable. India thus had to show the world they are the best and it entailed defeating UK, and their three Olympic gold that they got with the UK not in the fray, is not a fluke.
Secondly, Indian hockey resources itself was divided with the partition patronized by the outgoing masters. The question now is, is Indian hockey as strong as the one as it was in 1928, 1932 and 1948. Added to this is, exodus of Anglo-Indians who formed core of the previous Olympic teams.
The task was formidable, but India was not equal to meet it.
There were reasons for it.
Firstly, the foremost selection criterion was National Championship. The 1948 Edition was won by Bhopal, a state whose position with respect to be a part of India or Pakistan was still in doubt. The selection problem therefore started with this dilemma.
While one group strongly advocated inclusion of Bhopal players, others opposed it. There was also a strong anti-Punjab sentiment within the powers who counted in the Indian Hockey Federation.
In fact, Naval Tata, who was then president of the IHF, was on Europe tour handing over the job to an interim president, who is a journalist.
Bengal-Uttar Pradesh lobby used to be the key factor in those days, but with Tata on the IHF seat, this lobby felt challenged. The UP team not doing well in the Nationals added further salt to their wounds.
So, ultimately in the first list two of the 1948 Olympians who live even today — Balbir Singh Sr. and Grahanandan Singh – were not there. Just two players from Bhopal were taken with a secret understanding they will not be played though will be in the team.
Dates of caps, and composition of the training camps kept on changing, and one fine morning none other than Naval Tata had to issue a 3-page statement.
Then came the question of resources to send the players. The IHF begged anyone who count, Tata got government of the day release a small fund, he organized a ball, and other things.
Ultimately, when the team left and a month later won t he Olympic gold at Wembley stadium, all the controversies and nightmare of team selection were all forgotten.
Next two Olympics were also won, the 1952 being the toughest one as India was directly seeded into quarterfinal, and then semifinal and final. It meant a small slip will take to deep trouble.
And when India and Pakistan ultimately met – Melbourne Olympics final – after missing in the previous two Olympics being on other pool, India won but it was due to a guile penalty bulley win by Amir Kumar. Many in India and Pakistan even now feel it should have gone in favour of Pak, as Amir Kumar messed it up, but the umpire got confused. Be it as it may.
Pakistan took the revenge in 1960, but India, without a single Anglo-Indian proved its native talent is no less. I rate the 1964 Indian win is the best of our Olympics, and it was not without reasons.
What happened after 1964 is a simple lesson of India not keeping with the rest of the world in two areas – rule change and failure to use penalty corners.
If one forget the details but look at the big picture, it is clear India did not understand or practice well the rule changes and because of that lethargy or malfeance, it suffered. But hardly does India perform its postmortem well, instead used the defeat as a chance to get even with the coaches and the management.
New Zealand, only the second country to defeat India, and it was the opener of the 1968 Olympics, and it was due to misunderstanding of under-cutting rule by India and the rest of the world. Prithipal Singh’s one dozen penalty corner hits were disallowed, even before the hit was taken on the count of ‘under-cutting’ but each time his shot was disallowed the Indians were taken aback.
In the next Olympics, India got 18 penalty corner in the semifinal against Pakistan but not to avail. Mukhbain Singh, otherwise going strong like today’s Sandeep Singh, had to cut a sorry face, and then the management did not have any clue to change him for the fear of public wrath. So, it was our second successive bronze.
Fitness and different techniques were the need of the hour since then, with the introduction of synthetic surface.
Indian management, falsely and purposefully fed by the advice of former Olympians, never got anything right. Everything was considered a conspiracy. They refused to accept the reality of changing face of hockey.
Here again, in the synthetic era of hockey, Indian forwards were good enough to earn at least a dozen penalty corner in each match, but in the era dominated by the likes of Ties Kruizes, upto Bovelanders, India did not have a game winning penalty corner executioners, though we had great stars like Surjit Singh.
As a result our story of Olympics in the late 70s to now is one of worrisome. 1976 was a close affair, we were unfortunate to lose the semis in the tie breaker. It can happen to any team. But India was lucky to win the Moscow number as many powers chose to ignore participation.
1984 was the closet to semis and the goal difference let us down. Against it can happen to any team in any tournament. However, after the Los Angeles number, India really had only one chance to be in the semis, and it was 2000. However, as luck would have it, India could not score two goals against Poland or defeat them.
We lost the 1992 and 1996 Olympics due to indiscipline. The over-enthusiastic IHF messed up 2004 Olympics with last minute change of chief coach and other such comic stuff.
Not qualifying for the 2008 number was our own making, did not take lessons of poor World Cup in 2006 and not heeding the well-meaning advice of the FIH.
Over all, if one looks the long seven-decade journey of Indian hockey, the mesmeric era that the 1920 established could be continued for four more Olympics after Independence.
The fall of hockey was expected as competition got tighter and tighter. However India lived in its own world, beset by the rigid mindset.
Defeats were wrongly interpreted, often accusing individuals – players, coaches, establishment – as culprit and by and large did not take the lessons.
Clue less bureaucrats, media-conscious management and equally clueless former Olympians – who always selected and coached Indian teams — collectively liqudated Indian hockey. However, the sport survived, mostly on sympathy factor from the political class.
So, as we face London after the 1948 summer, the Indians did not have any mindset problem. The team is coached by a foreigner – a thought that would have landed you in the unpatriotic cell in the 80s and 90s.
In 1948, we had a necessity to re-establish our hockey credentials. And we did amidst many uncertainties. 64 years later, we still had the selection problem – some real talent were not considered this time not due to Bhopal Accession problem but due to internal feud between warring factions of hockey administration.
We still did not have a match winning penalty corner expert, and please mark my words.
However, it must be conceded that after the off-side had been taken off from the rules book, the trend of scoring has permanently changed. Teams need not have the likes of Takae Takema and Floris Jon Bovelanders to move the scoreboard. Specialist scorers are thing of past.
Each team now have 6-8 strikers, which is almost half of the team, who are capable of earning goals. If India will have the same trend, instead of relying on scoring specialist, it can gain some inches in the world hierarchy.
The other difference between London of 40s and now is, all the moves will be directed towards man in form Sardar Singh, akin to Balbir Singh Sr.
Unfortunately, Balbir was a striker, and Sardar is a play maker. Here comes the colourful nature of our two contrasting Olympic teams — and let us wait and see what happens.
We hope and trust London proves historic for India as it was seven summers ago.