It has been a roller-coaster ride for me in the past 11 months as the national hockey coach and I am afraid it ended rather painfully. India failed to qualify for the Olympic Games for the first time in 80 years since we made our debut in 1928.
Frankly, I cannot find words to describe the hurt and anguish all of us are feeling after losing to Britain. I was extremely confident that we would get past Britain, considering the talent and individual skill our team had.
But in the end, we just failed to raise our game to meet the biggest challenge Indian hockey has faced in recent times. The final moments of the match were very painful especially when I saw defeat looming large. It was then that I made up my mind to step down along with my support staff of Mohinder Pal Singh and Ramesh Parameswaran.
When I took over last April, I had stated that I would quit if I did not deliver results. In Santiago, I kept my word and resigned. I am not a miracle man and you cannot develop a top-class team overnight.
Fighting time
In some ways, I was fighting time too, for we had less than a year to the qualifying tournament and during that period, I had to start from scratch as the team I took over was short on motivation, confidence and self-belief.
The players had gone through a rough period in 2006 and I had to first help them get back on their feet. I did my best, but evidently, that was not enough. Weighing all these factors, I thought it was best to step down in the interests of Indian hockey. I am sure back home, there is a huge reaction, mostly adverse. I do understand, appreciate and share the sentiments of hockey fans.
However, I still believe not qualifying for the Olympics is not the end of the road for Indian hockey. There is plenty of talent in India, but now, we need to start from scratch, rebuild and fight our way back to the top. It is not an impossible task, but given time, we can yet become a major force.
Too many mistakes
In the final, we committed far too many mistakes, right from the push-back when Britain intercepted an avoidable overhead ball in the midfield, counter-attacked and scored in the fourth minute. Then, we allowed a harmless long ball to breach our defence and conceded a penalty corner which they converted for a 2-0 lead by the 10th minute.
We still had plenty to play for despite being two goals down. It required a big effort from our players, but sadly, nothing went right for us. The two yellow cards, that I would say were unwarranted considering the nature of fouls, further affected our rhythm.
What next for Indian hockey? Although not qualifying is a huge setback, we should not give up hope or over-react. I am sure back home, Olympians, players and hockey-loving public would begin to ask questions. I do not blame them. Yet, we must act rather than just react and that is the best way forward.
Retain core group
The best way forward would be to retain the core players. Youngsters like VR Raghunath, William Xalco, Vikram Kanth, Diwakar Ram and Ajitesh Roy have plenty of hockey left in them. I will say the same about the more experienced players like Prabhjot Singh, Tushar Khandekar and Shivendra Singh.
No purpose is served by pressing the panic button, for that will be a step back. I was queried whether I wo-uld reconsider my decision to quit if the Indian Hockey Federation asks me to. If at all they do, I would like to think things over. I have some issues over the way the game is administered in India, but this is not the moment for me to dwell at length on these matters.
Press Trust of India
