India’s meek surrender to Great Britain has dashed the team’s last hope of keeping alive a tradition since 1928.
India’s meek surrender to Great Britain has dashed the team’s last hope of keeping alive a tradition since 1928. India had more than a year to prepare for this event, after wasting an easy chance to qualify by failing to win a medal at the 2006 Doha Asiad. Many Olympians predicted this doomsday.
Though there is no statistical data with the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) on the number of registered players in the country, the performance curve, as evident by the scarcity of wins against top teams, has been nosediving for the last one decade. On Monday, it plunged into darkness.
Olympian Jagbir Singh, says he saw this day coming for quite some time. “We knew it, didn’t we?” asked the former star striker. “We came without a medal from the Asian Games in 2006 and yet, there was no seriousness on the part of the IHF.” March 10 was the day that Indian hockey had been looking forward to as the FIH had released the schedule well in in November last year. But the IHF was hopelessly off-target, again.
It’s believed the top two mandarins of the IHF, president KPS Gill and secretary K Jothikumaran, weren’t seeing eye to eye on several issues including the appointment of Australian Charlesowrth as the technical director of the Indian team. The IHF secretary is also not on talking terms with chief coach Joaquim Carvalho for the last six months.
Also, several talented players such as Viren Rasquinha, Arjun Halappa, Deepak Thakur, Gagan Ajit Singh got dropped from the team and several heads changed on the coaching front.
Says former captain Dhanraj Pillay, “I have been speechless since morning after the match got over. It gave me a sinking feeling, even more than what I felt when I was with the team and we drew with Poland to miss the 2000 Olympics semifinals. This is the blackest day in Indian hockey.”
Pillay recalls two occasions when he thought hockey had a chance to recover ground, the first time in 1998, and then in 2002-03. “We won the Asian Games gold after 32 years in the first instance and the second time, we were winning against top teams after a long gap. But the federations indulged in politics and sacked coach Rajinder Singh and the senior players at that time including me. What did they get in return?”
Not that the next generation players emerging after Dhanraj got any different treatment. Gagan Ajit Singh led India to their lone Junior World Cup title in 2001. Gagan, once the scourge of European defenders, is only 26 and fit to play but the IHF’s selection policies have forced him to opt for police training.
“It seems we are just going through the motion, without being serious about performing. Back in 2004 just before the Olympics, we changed our most successful coach at that time, and fared badly. Many players, myself included, were dropped without any rhyme or reason. What happened to the system? Nothing. No one cares actually,” says Gagan.
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