Times of India: What now for Indian hockey?

By Dhananjay Roy

June 25, 2017 – Misfiring India lose 3-2 to Canada, finish sixth in Hockey World League

July 9, 2017: India pull out of Hockey Pro League, replacement to be named

July 25, 2017 No Hockey India League in 2018

These are headlines that one felt had become a thing of the past given India’s steady progress over the past few years. But, as is obvious now, the situation seems to have taken a significant turn over the past 40 days, and followers of the sport would be wondering the direction in which Indian hockey is headed.

After all, the Hockey India League (HIL) had benefited India immensely since its inception in 2013, and although the game’s governing body, Hockey India, assured fans that things will be reworked and the league will return in 2019, there’s an element of doubt about what eventually lies in wait.

Also, it’s no rocket science that the International Hockey Federation (FIH) had built the entire concept of the Hockey Pro League, scheduled to debut in 2019, banking on their Indian stakeholders to make the long-drawn competition a success. After all, India contributes more than 50 % to FIH’s revenues, and it was expected that fans here would lap it up, and justify the $150 million that FIH was projecting to pump into the tournament during a four-year cycle.

As far as India’s performance on the pitch itself is concerned, they struck a purple patch last year, winning silver at the Champions Trophy in London, gold at the Asian Champions Trophy in Kuantan, Malaysia and finished second at the Azlan Shah tournament. They finished eighth at the Rio Olympics, but importantly, they showed the heart for a fight, unlike the abysmal show in London four years earlier, where they were left holding the wooden spoon.

Given this record, there was hope that the side would build up on these successes, but the results this year have been forgettable, despite finishing third in the annual Azlan Shah Cup. More importantly, the players, most of whom have enjoyed prolonged stints with the national team, now look slightly jaded as was evident at the Hockey World League Semifinals where India finished sixth, with a couple of wins over an ordinary Pakistan outfit, being their lone saving grace.

It can be argued that chief coach Roelant Oltmans is experimenting and trying to widen his talent pool ahead of a considerably hectic 2018, but if a team that is now expected to be challenging the best in the business goes on and loses to sides like Malaysia and Canada in an important tournament like the HWL, questions will be asked.

So how should one view the recent results and the two important off-field developments? Are they a setback for India, or will things take care of themselves, in the coming months when India will feature in the Asia Cup and the Hockey World League Final, followed by a busy 2018 that will be headlined by the World Cup, the Asian Games and the Commonwealth Games? “Although we would have expected the boys to fare much better at the World League, we must remember they had worked really hard last year which was the Olympic year. So a bit of cooling off is pretty natural. That said, we should have raised our game at the HWL,” said Harendra Singh, the coach who guided India to junior World Cup glory last year.

The Dronacharya awardee would know better than most since he has played a role in the grooming of the current lot over the past many years during various coaching stints, both at the senior and junior level.

Even if one doesn’t read much into the HWL result, another aspect that has emerged over the past few years is India’s inability to deliver consistent results against top teams.

While the eight-time Olympic gold medallists have trailed teams like Germany, the Netherlands and Australia significantly for a few decades now, outfits like Belgium and Argentina, who were at par with India not too long ago, have galloped ahead leaving India to play catch-up.

Till about 2010, this development could have been attributed to the lack of resources, facilities, exposure and vicious politics in the federation. It culminated in the team not even qualifying for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. But things began looking up significantly from the turn of this decade, and there was little that the players could complain about.