Our destiny is in our own hands: Nobbs

Uthra G Chaturvedi : New Delhi, Tue Jan 10 2012, 02:00 hrs

Coming from the more agreeable climes of Bangalore, where they had been for a fortnight now, the Indian men’s hockey team were pleasantly surprised by the bright sunshine during their first proper practice session at the National Stadium on Monday morning. And as the 45 players — divided into two groups — went through their drills, the brightness was reflected in coach Michael Nobbs’s mood that oozed optimism with regard to his toughest assignment yet: the Olympic Qualifiers, where India will fight it out with Canada, France, Poland, Italy and the USA for a spot in London Olympics, from February 18-26.

“The pressure is always there when you turn out for your country but the Olympic Qualifiers are an adventure for all of us. At the end of the day, we are trying to get this bunch of kids — and they really are mostly kids — to the Olympics. I’m 90-95 per cent confident of qualifying for London, provided something doesn’t go awfully wrong and there are no bad umpiring decisions against us,” Nobbs said on Monday. Given that Nobbs himself had pegged India’s chances at 60 to 70 per cent right after the draw was announced — which in itself had been double of what he had admitted after taking charge in June — there has been, mathematically speaking, a 200 per cent jump in the coach’s belief in his team in a span of six months. Quite a leap of faith.

Nobbs’s optimism stems from the Indians’ natural tilt towards an attacking brand of hockey. At the same time, the things that make European teams superior — physical strength and technology — are now beginning to be taken seriously in India as well. “The bad thing is, Indian hockey got left behind in terms of development in sports sciences in the last three decades. Let’s be honest, India has not really achieved anything worthwhile since 1975, if we exclude the boycotted Moscow Games.

Fine tuning

“The good thing is, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. The rest of the world has already done the research, we only have to fine-tune it and adapt to Indian conditions. Almost all international teams still fear us; it is the talent of Indian players that makes them potent. We are a naturally attacking side; most other teams have starting doing so now. At the qualifiers too, it will be down to those one or two games that will make the difference. It is not an easy or hard group, we are looking forward to it. Our destiny is in our own hands,” he said.

The process of shaping that destiny will begin on January 15, when India take on South Africa in a five-match Test series as part of their preparations for the qualifiers. The recent Champions Challenge, however, saw the old Indian problem of letting in goals in the dying moments proving their nemesis yet again, but Nobbs prefers to address the issue differently. “It is more about discipline. Being down in numbers doesn’t help in close games. Having said that, even when we were down, we missed quite a few chances to score. So our attacking game is not a problem, it’s just a question of having that wee bit more control on emotions,” he said.

As for long camps that have come under criticism from several quarters, Nobbs said it wasn’t just about the time span. “It is not a question of long camps but structured camps with matches in between to test your planning and preparation. Take Australia for example, their camp started on December 14 and will go on till the Olympics.”

The Indian women’s team, meanwhile, will take on Azerbaijan in four Tests from January 15-19.