A cellar performance

Looking back: Hockey

Indian hockey has tided through several disasters in the last two decades that has seen the game take a severe beating. Year 2012 just added more salt to the wounds.

After stoking passions with a sizzling performance over the support cast of world hockey at the FIH Olympic Qualifiers in February at home, the Indian team touched the nadir at London, showing the gulf between them and the elite remained huge.

While the rest of India rejoiced in the country’s unprecedented six-medal feat at the Olympics, the hockey team, returning to the quadrennial bash after missing the Beijing bus, finished last among the competing 12 teams.

Despite coming into the tournament in reasonably good form after claiming a bronze medal in the build-up Sultan Azlan Cup where six of the seven participating teams also featured at the Olympics, the team just failed to fire in unison at the big bash, pushing the national game to another low.

After putting up a great fight before losing 2-3 to eventual silver-medallists the Netherlands in their league opener, their display went from bad to worse, failing to win even a single match. A 2-3 loss to South Africa in the 11/12th place classification match summed up their abject surrender.

The attack lacked sting, the midfield -- barring Sardar Singh -- showed no creativity while the defence continued to be extremely generous, leaking goals left, right and centre as one opponent after another took time to make merry. In short, the team just failed to learn from its mistakes. It also left coach Michael Nobbs befuddled, as his all-out attacking mantra that worked well in the build up came a cropper.

Despite the disaster, Hockey India chose to stick with Nobbs, only announcing that a High Performance Manager will be appointed soon to help rebuild the game. However, uunderperforming senior players were given the boot and the selectors chose to go with a youthful team for the Champions Trophy, to which the country received a wild card and returned after a six-year absence.  Another flop show seemed imminent, but the youthful Indian team surprised one and all with a fourth-place finish. They rounded off the year with a second place in the Asian Champions Trophy. However, they still have a lot of work to do if they desire to improve their world ranking of 11.

Sadly, there remains very little hope on the administrative front. Hockey India and Indian Hockey Federation are still embroiled in their ugly spat with none willing to give an inch that is doing no good to the game. Another round in their never-ending war started in January when IHF was forced to postpone their ambitious World Series Hockey from January to March after many players -- fearing sanctions -- said they wanted to train hard for the Olympics Qualifiers and would play in the event later. However, things took a different turn after the Qualifiers when players certain of playing in the London Games opted out of WSH.

In September, the Indian Olympic Association decided that HI are the custodians of hockey in the country, forcing IHF to seek court’s intervention again. The Delhi High Court rapped IOA over its choice, telling them to maintain ‘status quo’ over the official hockey body in the country. The decision meant another year is set to pass but the die-hard fans and players are yet to know which body has the sole right to run the affairs of the sport in the country, although the FIH has steadfastly supported HI.

 While all this drama unfolded, HI unveiled its plans of conducting the Hockey India League next January-February. The HIL auctions saw Indian players draw good sums. Many top-class players from across the world also went under the hammer but with just five teams set to participate and no match in South India, one can only wait and see if HI is serious about developing the game or only trying to give a riposte for IHF’s WSH.
Off the field, the sport lost a legendary figure with the death of Leslie Claudius, three-time Olympic gold medal winner.

Year 2012 followed the now familiar course of disapppiontments and one hopes the New Year ushers in a change, both on and off the pitch.