A shot in the arm

16 Apr 2009:
The country’s hockey could be considered to be on the right track after the running of the game was taken over from the Indian Hockey Federation,
dominated for over a decade by supercop-turned-sports administrator K P S Gill. The winning, after 14 years, of the Azlan Shah Cup at Ipoh is a step in that direction.

The most number of goals scored in the tournament was by Sandeep Singh who was not even in the IHF’s scheme of things after suffering an injury. At this year’s Azlan Shah tournament, India beat New Zealand and then Pakistan, before going on to defeat hosts Malaysia by a convincing margin in the finals on Sunday.

However, the real test will come when India plays hockey superpowers like Holland, Germany, Australia and Spain. For that, India will have to qualify for the two major international tournaments where the world’s best hockey-playing nations will be participating — the Olympics and the World Cup.

India failed to automatically qualify for the 2008 Beijing Olympics when the national team could not reach the semi-finals of the 2006 Qatar Asian Games after losing to China for the first time in an international tournament. So India’s performance in the 2010 World Cup, to be held in New Delhi, will be watched with keen interest.

However, with the FIH — the game’s international body — reportedly indicating that the event could be shifted out of India if it is not hosted by the national hockey federation, there is some degree of uncertainty over the country’s participation.

What could be crucial is India’s performance at the 2010 Asian Games at Guangzhou, China. Many more steps, both on and off the hockey field, will have to be taken for the Azlan Shah Cup to be seen as the beginning of a renaissance for Indian hockey. Until then, The Times of India headline, Ipoh not an epoch, just about sums up things.

Courtesy: Economic Times editorial