Project Hockey: A long way to go for India despite success

The sport has shown signs of progress in India recently. But it still has a long way to go. How is Hockey India going about the job? TOI finds out…

Elena Norman, Hockey India’s CEO, and David John, federation’s high performance director, came to the TOI office recently and shared their vision for the growth and development of the game in the country with Times Sport.

The federation’s main emphasis is on ensuring an improvement in the men’s and women’s teams’ performance in big tournaments. The recent losses to Malaysia and Canada in the HWL Semifinals must have come as a setback for the men’s team and the federation, but both Elena and David are confident that India will soon reap the benefits of a programme which is directed at achieving excellence in the fast-changing world of modern hockey.

Excerpts from the interaction…

We don’t have enough hockey happening in Delhi. How can we get media coverage in this scenario and promote hockey in the city?

Elena: Things like hosting camps are dictated by the weather and infrastructure. At the moment, given what we have in other centres such as Bangalore and Bhopal, the camps are hosted there because that’s where the best facilities are. Then, whether it’s happening in Delhi or somewhere else, it’s still of national relevance. Hosting events in Delhi is a real challenge. You have probably seen when we go to centres like Bhubaneshwar, Raipur and Ranchi, we get great crowds and it adds to the event. Having a crowd at an event just takes the event to a new level.

How do you plan to tackle the issue of the Pakistani team coming and playing here?

Elena: They have to qualify first. If we beat them in every single tournament, and everyone else beats them, then they are not going to make it here. So we will see.

Has Hockey India made an effort to revive the India-Pakistan hockey test series?

Elena: We actually talked about it some years ago. I think maybe 3-4 years ago we signed an MOU with them. Unfortunately, since then there have been a few incidents which were unsavoury, which kind of turned us off.

There was that Bhubaneshwar event. They misbehaved, they were asked to apologize…

Elena: They still haven’t. Our board has taken a strong stand on that. And I think even the government separately has taken a strong stand in terms of playing bilateral series with Pakistan.

So there’s no possibility of it happening in the near future?

Elena: In the current scenario, yes.

Not even at a neutral venue?

Elena: Well obviously you look at such things as the new Hockey Pro League and obviously the Pakistan team has been announced within that. As part of that we will have to play Pakistan one match away, and one match at home. That is still a year and a half away so you never know what happens between now and then.

India won the Junior World Cup and quite a few juniors have come into the senior team in the transition period. So what is the long term plan?

David: We aren’t the only country that has done that. Australia have only kept 3-4 from their Olympic team and have completely changed. England have changed, I have yet to see Germany. So, I think we are at the right age. We have enough players who were here in 2012 and we said in 2012 that it would take 4-8 years for us to start getting rewards. We have enough of those players now, who have played together for 100-150 matches. So they have good cohesion, good experience, a mature body type to be getting results. So I don’t actually see a lot of those Junior World Cup boys coming into the team for the World Cup. Manpreet, Harmanpreet or Mandeep are already in the senior squad. But then you have another three years before the Olympics and that’s a long time away. A lot can happen injury-wise, fatigue-wise.

When these juniors come to camps, are they well versed in modern techniques and tactical drills?

David: I think having Roelant Oltmans (chief coach) here for the last three and a half years and having the continuity has helped. He provided a lot of tactical inputs for the Junior World Cup as well.

Harendra Singh’s was more of a mentor role, and together they worked really well. It was a nice fit. So I think having him here and having the continuity will benefit those young guys. We were by far the fittest team in 2016 Junior World Cup. But we are probably the only country in the world to have spent a large amount of money for three years on a group of 33 boys. The emphasis has always been there on improving the fitness of the players here, because we accept we have great skills. We need to match other countries in terms of their fitness and I think we did with those junior boys.

Elena: They are now at a level where they are much closer to the senior level than what they ever have been before. The transition isn’t so difficult now.

If there proper understanding of modern hockey in the core hockey centres of the country?

David: No, the skill level is still very high, but the concentration in the academies is on developing skills and not necessarily a game sense or a game awareness or a different game strategy. And it’s not on developing fitness either. That’s my role.

And that comes later…

David: Well, I want that being developed from a young age. I don’t want them coming at 18, and having to start at that stage. I want to start at 12 years of age, like they do in other countries. We are making efforts in bringing their fitness levels up when we should be spending that time and money on game awareness and tactics, strategies.

Elena: And this is where our coaching development programme that David is currently putting in place will help. I think all the coaches understand what is required now.

Does it need a lot of work?

David: No we just need to get on the same page. In all respect, they haven’t caught up to the modern game. I don’t want the Indian players to lag behind again simply because the game has changed significantly with the 4×15 minutes (four quarters of 15 minutes each) format. At the academy level we are still playing 2×35 (two halves, 35 minutes each).

What exactly is the shift from 2×35 to 4×15?

David: Speed. The game is so much faster. The reactions are so much faster. I sometimes call it chaos. There are so many substitutions happening. You are on the field for three minutes at a time generally and rotating continuously. It’s demanding physically and mentally and that’s the change.

But is it also less demanding in terms of skill?

David: I don’t think so, because you now have to perform your skills under fatigue at top speed.

We don’t have genuine players of skill who can take on defenders, get past them. We had those players in the 70s…

David: It’s actually become a 3-dimensional game, so because the attack line is so good, the flat attack line, the players you are talking about now in other countries are using three dimensional skills – lifting the ball and carrying the ball. Akashdeep has that ability but he doesn’t do it enough. And I see young Indian players do it at junior level. But I don’t see them doing it under pressure in matches yet. And I am very conscious of not creating robotic players. I want the Indian flair to come.

But are you saying that dribbling cannot happen anymore?

David: Yes it can, but the tackling is so much better than it was. Yes, when we are trying to get the ball out of defence, players use very close skills to pass the ball. Sardar still has brilliant dribbling skills.

Which are the core areas where the talent in India is coming from?

David: There’s actually a mix across nine regions. In the junior team, UP contributed four. MP had four. Odisha has quite a few, Jharkhand 6-7, then Haryana. There were three from Manipur in the girls’ programme and one from Mizoram.

How many astroturfs do we have in India, 30 or 40?

Elena: We have got around 125 and there are 25 under construction. We are putting in international standard astroturfs. So we probably have the highest number of international certified turfs now in the world now.

What effort is Hockey India making towards grooming players?

Elena: Our women’s programme have English classes and computer classes to help them use the internet and access emails. We teach everyone now to have an email address because a lot of our correspondence goes on emails. We need to teach them how to view their own performance as well as match analysis. We have very long camps because a couple of things we appreciate is that a lot of these athletes need to go back to a faraway centre which will take them a long time to travel. When they go home, obviously their mum likes to feed them up as well, so they might be eating something that might not be conducive for an athlete. We are trying to introduce them to local food and cultures when they travel. And I think the athletes are more open to it then when I first came here 6 years ago. On tours abroad, earlier, they always insisted on going to an Indian restaurant.

What’s the kind of statistics are you looking in a hockey player?

David: In the past, it’s been team-based statistics – how many circle entries, how many shots you hit, the percentage of time spent in your position. I am more concerned about the individual, like how involved they are, how effective they were with their passing, attacking and tackling; what’s their decision making like. Just like there has been a change in the fitness levels over the four years, we have to start selecting and talent identifying the best decision makers at an early age.

You think that’s an inner skill because somebody like Sardar had it from a young age?

David: Yeah, it’s very difficult. And I call that game awareness. So when we come to talent identification now, we look at three criteria – fitness, skill level and game sense. So we can have someone who is not as fit, not as fast but has extremely good game sense and we can put Sardara in that region now.

Of these things would you say skill is the easiest to work on?

David (laughs): No, fitness is easiest to work.

In hockey, most of our players come from the lower middle class background. Does that stop them from having proper game awareness?

David: No, I don’t think so. I think it’s lack of exposure, two different game styles as they have come up through academies which teach differently. We expose them to more scenarios and I think Hockey India league has been fantastic -certainly for the men -because they had that experience of working with the Germans, the Dutch and Belgians and working with Australians and receive that just sitting, talking, listening. They learn so much.

As far as diet is concerned, was it tough to get the Indian players eat the right way?

David: I actually think Indian food is pretty healthy. I have lost 9 kilos since I came here (laughs). So one thing I tried to do when I first came was to increase the size of the players by putting on the muscles which will increase your speed and to do that you need extra protein. So we use weight protein and SAI provide us with enough weight proteins for every camp. It’s also very important for their recovery because of the training, sometimes three times a day and to prevent injury, they need that extra source.

You are running a huge project. So is the money enough? Is the government paying you enough money?

Elena: We have never been short of getting money for what we need, what we really need. So pretty much anything we will ask the ministry and SAI for that we really need for the team, they have never said no to us.