Blurred future but hope lingers for Indian hockey team

After the 2016 Rio Olympics quarterfinal exit, men’s hockey in India reset its vision button and turned all its attention on 2018, a crucial year that would culminate with the blockbuster Hockey World Cup at home.

While the build-up to the season was massive, the outcome has been equally meagre.  

In the three back-to-back major tournaments this year, India ended fourth at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games (CWG), returned with a bronze as defending champions from the Jakarta Asian Games and tasted a bitter close defeat in the last-eight stage in a World Cup where bigger things were expected from them.

By now, Indian hockey is used to the ‘Oh, we fell short but fought well’ feeling, a sympathy wave that carries them forward to ride higher tides despite a repeated sense of under-achievement.

The sail ahead, though, looks as hazy as the choke of the past, both for the team and its head coach Harendra Singh.

With India’s refusal to be a part of the Pro League -- hockey’s new home-and-away league that will see nine teams play each other across six months -- starting next month, the Indian team will be deprived of any serious competition with the top teams of world hockey.

It’s a roadblock detrimental to the development of this promising team, more so in its quest to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics after failing to earn a direct entry via the Asian Games gold.                      

“All our planning was till this World Cup. Now we cannot just sit and train. We’ll have to sit with Hockey India and plan with the team,” Harendra said. 
If he stays to figure it out, that is.

Despite signs of improvement shown by the players under Harendra, who took over the role only after India’s CWG disappointment, the axe is well and truly on him after failing to walk the talk in the Asian Games and the World Cup.

It is learnt that Harendra’s contract with Hockey India (HI) ran only till the World Cup, and it will be a surprise if HI extends it.

HI equally to blame  

The HI top brass, however, should take an equal part of the blame for the perpetual sense of instability it has seeped into the set-up.

If sacking Roelant Oltmans months before the beginning of this key season was a blunder, swapping Sjoerd Marijne and Harendra as coaches of the two national teams bang in the middle of the year was bizarre.

Every time the team looked to be headed in a certain direction by a certain coach, the HI didn’t think twice in placing a detour signboard.  

Start, stop, start, stop. The cycle keeps running.

Signs of improvement  

Yet in the consistent chaos that is Indian hockey, hope remains its constant.

This new-look Team India might be a work in progress but there is indeed progress (leaving aside the statistical sixth-place finish here, India’s best in a World Cup since 1994). 

Strength, speed and stamina have rarely been India’s forte, and this team kept its fitness flag flying throughout the campaign, matching European teams in Netherlands and Belgium. 

The team’s defence stood out as the brightest spot, players keeping attacks at bay with neat tackles and calm minds. India conceded just four goals in the four matches and had their defensive structure largely intact, even during the high-pressure Dutch quarterfinals.      

“When your structure is solid, things take care of itself,” Harendra said. “We were tackling well, not just paddling back. There’s a lot of improvement in the team in the area of defending and one to one tackling. The players are now a mixture of defenders, midfielders and attackers.”

However, it’s the last group that continues to require serious work. India just did not find a way to convert innumerable opportunities into enough goals, and while that won’t hurt as much against teams like South Africa and Canada, come show time against Holland, it proved to be game-changer yet again.

And ironically, while composure gave the defenders company, it abandoned the strikers.    

“When the ball is not in your zone, we have to learn to just hold the ball and control it. That’s the main area where we still have to improve upon. I feel the moment we can improve on that, this team can be lethal,” Harendra said.

Ah, the hope again. Never mind the blurred future.

India’s World Cup: Hits & misses: 

Takeaways

• Tightening the defence: A unit that was prone to panic in the past, India’s defensive group stood tall throughout the tournament, conceding just four goals in four outings. No soft errors, no last-minute goals. Even when the Dutch were at their most dangerous self in the second half, the Indian defence held on to its own.  

• Fitter than before: Matching teams like Belgium and Netherlands in the fitness department is no mean feat, and India have shown that throughout this campaign. If there’s one area where there has been a visible transformation, it is the fitness standards of this team.   

• Return to attacking style: Going away from the impact of various foreign coaches over the past few years, India are playing a style of hockey that defines them the best: play attacking hockey with the purpose of moving ahead with the ball. While the execution still needs plenty of work, the return of the concept is welcome. 

Weaknesses

• Converting chances: It’s an area that has bothered the team a lot off late, and yet there has been little done to fix it. The players do all the right things to get the ball inside the circle, but when it comes to applying the final touch in front of the goal, they panic. It was the single biggest glaring issue during this tournament. 

• Big match temperament: Harendra Singh might like to label every match as a big match, but the truth is that while India make all the right noises in largely inconsequential matches of big events, they tend to go silent when the crunch knockout matches come calling. In happened in CWG and Asian Games this year, and it happened in the World Cup too.

• Penalty corner conversion: Much was expected from Harmanpreet Singh in the drag-flicking department after the experienced Rupinder Pal Singh was left out, but he couldn’t quite manage to rise to the occasion. Varun Kumar and Amit Rohidas were given few chances, and variations almost negligibly tried out.