Indian hockey: From laptops to tablets

BANGALORE: From laptops to iPads, the transition will be complete in a few days when the top 18 of the Indian hockey team get to combine the merits of post-mortem, analysis and planning ahead with these gadgets.

The iPads, a gift from Hockey India secretary-general Narinder Batra, will be put to good use at the camp even if it happens at the expense of laptops that some of the players possess. The iPads and the cash awards announced by Hockey India will be given away in the last week of March.

“As you are aware, the moment India won the qualifiers, Lalit Suri announced a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh for all the players and Rs 50,000 for the support staff,” Batra said. “We at Hockey India also announced the same cash prize. However, the players said they would prefer an iPad. We decided to give them both – the cash prize and the iPad.”

Besides helping the players fill up their diaries with the activities they pursue during the day, the iPads will help them watch videos of their game during practice and actual match-play, check out report cards of their performance, statistical data and videos of upcoming matches, opponents’ patterns of play and challenges they are likely to face in their zone of action.

“iPads are a big hit in Major League Baseball,” points out chief coach Michael Nobbs. “Ever since it was launched, we have had teams latching on to iPads because they make match analysis a breeze.” According to Nobbs, the defenders and the front-liners would be called for separate meetings to cut the boredom out of long-winding team analysis before the group session is organized to assimilate the inputs from these meetings and chart the way forward.

“The videos are basically information about the game, to reinforce the fact that our plans worked,” said Nobbs, revealing a critical aspect of the exercise. “We don’t highlight the mistakes as we do the plus points. It is easy to focus on their weak areas and not the strengths. The statistics do that in any case. But by focusing on the merits, we give them a chance to analyze themselves against opponents by providing them with similar information about the other team.”

When asked whether players would readily embrace technology, Nobbs said: “I don’t see a problem there. They understand technology”.