Indian hockey in a shambles

Prabhjot Singh

By finishing a poor sixth in Azlan Shah hockey tournament at Ipoh, Malaysia early this month, Indian hockey appears to be struggling hard for survival as different power centres – Hockey India, Indian Hockey Federation and Ministry of Sports – are reportedly pulling it in different directions, to wrest control over the administration of this once national game of the country.

While Hockey India is playing a subdued second fiddle to the Union Ministry of Sports in meeting its international commitments of the International Hockey Federation, the sport is unfortunately heading to its nadir, as players and State Hockey Associations are vertically divided over the national body.

Early this month, the Indian Hockey Federation organised its Federation Cup Tournament in Jalandhar at a time when the national team was getting drubbings from Pakistan and New Zealand in the Azlan Shah Hockey Tournament in Ipoh. Both Hockey India and Indian Hockey Federation are going ahead with their tournaments, including National championships, not only for seniors, but also for juniors and sub juniors, independent of each other.

Things are not working out well. How a team that has 10 or more players who can run first 10 metres of 100 metre sprint faster than the World’s fastest man Usain Bolt, can lose out on stamina in their last play off match against Korea. Even earlier in the tournament, the Indian team squandered 1-0 lead to be beaten by Pakistan and then got a huge drubbing from New Zealand, before losing the last game to Korea to finish sixth.

As of now, the control, except for national Hockey India (HI) tag, lies with the Ministry of Sports that overlooked suggestions from the Technical Committee (of HI) in training the team for the Azlan Shah tournament.

India will be playing host not only to the Champions Trophy Hockey Tournament in New Delhi in December, but will also play host to Olympic qualifier and Junior World Cup in the next year. What are the level of preparations of our national teams for these tournaments that the country is going to host?

The Union Ministry of Sports thinks it to be expensive to hire a foreign coach but can spend Rs 2 crores on training of Indian team by keeping it in five star hotel for Azlan Shah Hockey Tournament. Hockey experts differ on the subject maintaining that putting a team in a hotel during training camp is not only an avoidable distraction, but also a big drain on time of players who have to travel to different places for various training requirements, including checking of their physical fitness, stamina, strength and endurance. Food in hotels is not what the players need in a training camp. Further, the camps are without sufficient number of trainers, including coaches, physical fitness experts, psychologists, doctors, masseurs, videographers and other support staff.

Even a letter was written by the Secretary-General of Hockey India, Narinder Batra, to Ministry of Sports late last month for an urgent meeting to resolve issues like deciding venue for training of Indian men, women and junior teams for coming international tournaments, choosing coaches, support staff, scientific equipment required for training, naming doctors, physiotherapists and videographers to stay with national teams and starting develoment camps for the junior team. The request has reportedly gone unattanded.