India have Scots as appetiser in hockey
NEW DELHI: Is it fitness or psychology or poor tactics or lack of world class talent or mismanagement of the game in the country? Or a combination of all these? Or… something else? Everytime, the Indian hockey team falls flat against top-class opposition, the impromptu post-mortem always yields more than one reason for the inability of our boys to match up to teams like Australia, Germany, Holland and Spain.
On Thursday, after another humbling loss to the Aussies (5-2) in a Group A game of the CWG men’s hockey competiton, chief coach Jose Brasa and captain Rajpal Singh were called upon to enlighten the media on the ‘reasons’ for the debacle.
For Brasa, one of the primary reasons was lack of a sports psychologist for the team. “What the players do in practice, they can’t replicate in matches. We got five penalty corners in the first half but couldn’t convert any of those. In practice, it’s just the opposite… we don’t miss any. This is where a psychologist comes in.”
Rajpal, on the other hand, was categorical in his opinion: “Unless we can match the fitness levels of the Australians, we can’t beat them. Everything else like planning and tactics come later.”
Meanwhile, for coach Harendra Singh, what contributed to the defeat was the inability of his boys to put the gameplan into action, especially in the second half.
Well, all these factors could be responsible in varying degrees. But now they need to be up and running if a creditable finish in the CWG is to happen, since they will be playing two games in two days. First up on Saturday, are Scotland.
It will be followed by the marquee contest of the tournament: India vs Pakistan. That game will, in all likelihood, decide which team goes into the semifinals from Group A.
World champions Australia, who play Pakistan on Saturday, should top the group, in which case the fight between Indian and Pakistan will be for the second semifinal spot.
India will still be looking to pump in as many goals as possible because goal difference will be crucial for semifinal qualification in case two teams end up equal on points. At present, India’s goal difference (5-7) is inferior to Pakistan’s (7-1).