Simple Stat. India finished third in a competition that had six London Olympic teams. Simple Projection: India sixth in the Olympics.
This seems to be our realistic London prospects after watching India’s performance in the Azlan Shah Cup.
India has to perform miracle of sort, or at least lift its team work two notches better, if it has any dreams of finishing above this. This is not a pessimistic view, but practical one.
Some other numbers further accentuate this view.
India gets one penalty corner in the first match, two in the second and three in the third. And then it got struck. Its not a linear progression after that, meaning the seventh match did not see seven penalty corners but half that.
There is no projection here, but only strong message.
And for this consider this: After India lost heavily (1-5) to New Zealand in the opening day, Michael Nobbs was angry. His was well-founded. “Players go for attacking, an Indian mindset instead of creating penalty corners. We have world class penalty corner executioners in Sandeep Singh and VR Raghunath”, but no penalty corners on board”. He said repeatedly as many times as you wanted to hear.
This is the problem. The idea of coach, it seems, does not get translate on to the field. This is a serious issue. Not getting penalty corner has not just happened in Ipoh alone; if at all, the trend was set in River Bank Stadium, London. Penalty corners were a scarce commodity there too.
Indian hockey, according to Michael Nobbs, is now playing an attacking brand of hockey, after ‘unlearning’ Brasa-infused, or infected, European style.
The basis of the concept is to outscore, don’t worry about conceding goals.
This concept did not show up in Ipoh. India took care of the second, and was at loss with respect to the first.
Goals, field or penalty, were in short supply.
Three victories in the league, all against fellow Asians, were achieved with wafer thin margin. KS Uthappa and SV Sunil struck stunner of goals with a less than a minute left in the clock. We cherished their feat, but at the same time, as Korean coach explained as cool as possible, results of these match could have gone either way on another day.
So, what is the lesson for India. It has to score. India plays attacking, Asian brand on paper, and the theory peters out on the field.
Tushar Khandker, who played six Azlan Shahs before, and Shivender Singh, who played one more than him, could not showcase their experience and expertise and it told on why we did not score. Sandeep Singh was not on the field most of the times India got penalty corners. He is good game prompter, but continued to be a patchy defender. Raghunath has shown improvements but is not dashing enough to make his mark felt.
India rested Gurbaj Singh for the first match, result was 1-5. Coach Nobbs did not rest him thereafter. Returning from injury, Gurbaj did well unlike Yuvraj Walmiki.
Birendra Lakra was a revelation, and if would continue the same form in London as he had in Ipoh, it can then be said Michael Nobbs has got a man he wanted, an all rounder. Manpreet Singh is a tireless workhorse, very purposeful and delightful. Danish Mujtafa is an asset. These two are the consistent players. KS Uthappa is very good in spells, and very alert, positions well in the circle. Yuvraj has been a passenger in the last two tournaments, so also Azlan Shah. Sarwanjit Singh, despite his continued presence in the high level outings, flatter to deceive. He is almost meaningless inside the circle. SV Sunil was good in patches, and one has to find out why he takes time to settle. He played well mostly in second half, and he has to deliver if India wants better ranking in London.
Sardar Singh was head and shoulder above the rest. We won when he was in his form, we lost when he was not so. He was simply not there in the first half against Britain, and when he did well in the next, we put the ball thrice into the net for the over-rated bronze. He appeared damn tired against Argentina, he lost full three points. We have over-exposed him. We need to rest him for a match in such a long drawn out tournament such as this, so that the team will get to manage without him, but the coach did not take the plunge.
While he is the strength of the team, one glaring aspect of him should not be lost sight of. His over-confidence, to beat a dozen chasers for instance, is not good all the times. India conceded a couple of goals due to his over-confidence. What happened in Perth last November merits mention. He brought the ball from right flag area to our own D hoping to dodge a forward, but placed the ball on platter for the other to strike. He created a goal for the Australian second string. Therefore, tis aspect need to be looked at critically and objectively.
The whole Indian team expected Sardar to do the miracle. The team’s over-dependence of him, which cannot be avoided when such a class material is amongst us, may prove to be a factor at London.
India was not consistent because of its over-reliance on individual brilliance of player like Sardar Singh. Dangerous situation indeed. On the whole, the team is yet to peak, glaring inadequacies exist in the forwardline. But India will not be pushover in London. This is for sure.