Overskill in hockey in sub-continent

Mumbai: The sight of Dhanraj Pillay or Mukesh Kumar cutting through the rival defence is one sight to behold.

Seeing the dribbling and delicate stickwork that Indians and Pakistanis are famous for makes one feel that this is the real stuff, the real hockey. It was skill that India used to get past crowded striking circles and score. For rival teams, it would have been like trying to catch running cats.

And along came the Europeans, Australians etc with their ‘ball is faster than the man’ concept.

Let’s get scientific, they said. The whole idea was not to waste too much time with the ball but make quick passes. It is like geometry lessons on a field. Drag flicks came in. Getting goals was much easier, the forwards fetch you a penalty corner, the flicker comes and does the rest.

As hockey progressed and became more scientific, teams which depended more on skill were sort of ‘caught in the middle’. Onone hand was their skill-based game and on the other was the synthetic turf and a faster game.For a number of years, India has been trying to make the best use of both styles.

“From grass to synthetic turf and removal of the off-side rule, hockey has changed. It is tactical now. When we talk about the European ‘ball is faster than the man’ concept, the tactic is to pass to the nearest person in front. The other fact is that there is no hockey without skill,” said former men’s coach and Olympian MK Kaushik, now the chief coach of the women’s team.

Changing the gameplan according to the opposition became vital.

“We need to master our skills. In a game, tactics should be changed according to the opposition. We will not be able to match the speed of the Europeans and that is why we must use skill and strategy, there must be planning,” said Olympian MP Ganesh, who was a member of the 1975 World Cup-winning Indian team.

While India may be proud of the skills they possess, the need of the hour is to get medals and not just impress the crowd. Modern hockey needs very high levels of planning and expertise.
“European teams or even New Zealand utilise their resources to the maximum as they do not have player numbers like India and Pakistan,” said Olympian and former coach Joaquim Carvalho.

“Their training is intensive, scientific and they use a lot of expertise. Their goals are chalked out well in advance. For the top-six teams in the world, the whole hockey setup is better,”Carvalho added.

Indians today are adopting more modern concepts of the game. Hockey has changed so much that it is quite impossible to stick to only skills. But if we are to play a skill-only game, we need to be super good with our skills.

Only then can we slow down the pace of the game while playing a team like the Netherlands or Germany and still be effective. Using a bit of both concepts is probably a dilemma that Indians will face for some more time.

But former India coach V Baskaran, who captained the 1980 Moscow gold-winning team, said: “India has a Spanish coach now and now there is not much difference between European and Asian styles. It is all about how you adapt on a particular day. There is no rule as such and teams will play according to their rivals’ strengths and weaknesses,”

India play Pakistan on February 28. It is going to be one match where display of skills will be in abundance. After that, our boys will be better off with scientific thinking and adhering to robust strategy. Else, it could be the same old story of European domination.