Old hand gets the reins
Uthra G Chaturvedi
Despite being a India team regular for the past 11 years, Arjun Halappa was never considered to lead the national side. His experience, intelligence and astute reading of the game had failed to convince the selectors to hand him the captain’s armband.
Finally, on Tuesday, there was a change of mind and the 30-year-old Halappa was named the Indian skipper for next month’s Azlan Shah hockey tournament.
“I was out with a cousin since we had the evening off from training and got to know only quite late. It is a surprise, but a pleasant feeling. I am speechless,” was his first reaction. Though, he was quick to add that the promotion wouldn’t change outlook or attitude on-and-off the field. “ It’s a great honour but it’s not that anything has changed. Being captain will not make me a different person or a player,” he says.
That has been quintessential Halappa all these years. A team man to the core, he is the senior most player in the current team with 223 caps. He is among the most skillful players in the world, a throw back to Indian hockey’s golden era when stick work ruled the game globally.
Coming from Coorg, one of the nurseries of India hockey and son of a former hockey player, Halappa made his first international tour as a junior in 1999, under CR Kumar and Harendra Singh. It’s interesting that the highest honour has finally come to him with Harendra as coach.
Halappa is also the only player in the present squad to have played three World Cups — a creditable achievement, given the fact that he lost two of his peak years because of the federation’s whimsical selection policy that ignored the mid-fielder’s brilliant domestic performances. “If everything that people said mattered to me, I would have stopped playing long back. But that isn’t my way. For me, my self belief is most important,” he said.
Despite getting the captaincy late, Halappa is not a greenhorn as a leader. He led Bangalore to the Premier Hockey League title twice and was among the more vocal players during the players’ strike in Pune last year. Those close to him say that Halappa’s leadership style is subtle. Halappa played a key role in India lifting the junior World Cup in 2001 and is also only one of four survivors from that squad, others including the man he has replaced at the helm — Rajpal Singh.
During last year’s World Cup, Halappa was hurt at not even being considered for captaincy, but he didn’t make his sentiments public. “Honestly, it never stuck me. And I can’t afford to think about it either. I don’t have the time to be bothered about things like captaincy,” he had said.
But now that he has been given the charge, he reveals how much it actually matters to him. “Even if I get to wear the armband for one match, that will be a special moment which will stay with me all my life,” he says.