Hockey: Only the beginning for India's youthful renaissance

India’s hockey players Sandeep Singh and Birendra Lakra during the game against Korea at last year’s Olympics

In the 33 years that have passed since the 1980 Olympiad in Moscow, the Indian men’s hockey team has not won a single medal in any of the subsequent eight Olympiads. Last year in London, the team finished 12th and last behind Germany, Netherlands, Australia, Great Britain, Belgium, Spain, Pakistan, Korea, New Zealand, Argentina and South Africa in that order.

The team also suffered the ignominy of losing every single match at the Games; India were beaten in each of their five round-robin games in Pool B, as well as the final playoff match against South Africa to determine 11th/12th place.

They scored six goals while conceding 18 to end up at the bottom of the pile with a goal difference of -12. Their equals from the other group, South Africa, managed to draw one of their games. It can be argued though that India ostensibly had the tougher of the two groups with the likes of Germany, the Netherlands, Korea and New Zealand all in their pool.

After losing out narrowly to the Dutch 2-3 in their opening game, they were blown away in the remaining matches with ease by New Zealand (1-3), Germany (2-5), Korea (1-4) and even Belgium (0-3).

But, the lead-up to the event was so promising!

No, this is not another story of doom and gloom in Indian hockey, merely a revisit to the team’s performance at the quadrennial event last year to lay bare an almost seasonal swing that Indian men’s hockey seems to be riding for a good part of the last decade.

It is on the back of India’s most recent success at the Sultan Johor Cup in Malaysia that this conundrum arises – India’s junior teams perform extremely well, but that success has failed to translate into greater hopes of success at the senior level.

There is a huge groundswell of optimism and hope going into a major tournament thanks to good results preceding them, yet things seem to not quite go according to plan upon landing at the actual tournament.

Of the teams that India finished behind at the Olympics, falling behind the likes of the Germans, the Aussies, the Dutch and the Spaniards would not classify as a disaster. It is falling behind teams such as New Zealand, Britain, Belgium and South Africa that rankle in the minds that little bit longer.

It is of course, in no way to demean any of those teams, for they have displayed the progress that has been found wanting in the Indian setup for a long time now. So, credit to each of those teams for having put in developmental programs that have helped their teams progress in the manner that they have.

The juniors who played in Malaysia at the Sultan Johor event were excellent. Right through the tournament, they looked the team to beat and barring the draw with the hosts in the round-robin stage, they comfortably beat the remaining teams.

The brand of hockey that they put on show with some great exhibition of skill was a treat to watch. Some of the common complaints that are often aimed at the senior team – namely lack of skill, organization and profligacy in front of goal – were nowhere to be seen.

The current influx of youth has the standoff between Hockey India (HI) and the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) to thank for its opportunity. Last year’s rock-bottom finish led to coach Michael Nobbs plumping for youth and doing away with the old guard.

India finished second in the Asia Cup in August and the juniors won the Sultan Johor tournament

This new-look team performed really well at the recent Asia Cup at Ipoh, Malaysia. They were rather unlucky to not emerge from the tournament as winners after a thrilling final where they finished on the wrong end of a 4-3 score-line due to a few controversial calls by the referees.

Even before that tourney in Malaysia, the talent at the coach’s disposal shone through at the Champions Trophy late last year, where India finished a very creditable fourth after losing the bronze medal playoff to Pakistan.

For a team that was just being introduced to the demands of international hockey at one of the most prestigious tournaments around, that was a very promising showing.

Since then, Indian hockey has been on the upswing and both the senior and junior teams’ performances have helped tide over the catastrophe that was last year’s Olympics.

And what’s good to see is that the talent pool available to pick from is not limited.

“As I have said, the future of hockey in India is juniors. With the loss of the WSH players to the main hockey system for the last 16 months, India had to develop the junior programme,” former coach Nobbs mentioned in an interview post the junior team’s victory.

“This group of juniors [playing the Sultan of Johor Cup] are a great bunch coached extremely well by Baljit Saini and Gregg Clark, who should really be looked at for the national coaching job as they have been intimately involved with these players for the last two years,” Nobbs added.

“After the Junior World Cup, most of these players will move into the senior team and will have had considerable experience already playing senior hockey, and we will start to see more consistent results for the senior Indian team.”

Of the players who featured in the triumph at Malaysia, Manpreet Singh the captain, has already featured for India at the senior level. So have the likes of Mandeep Singh, Gurmail Singh, Amit Rohidas, Malak Singh and Ramandeep Singh.

In short, the results that we have seen over the last 10 months or so promise much towards the restoration of Indian hockey’s standards on the world stage.

But, we have been here before.

Senior teams’ inability to perform leading to changes being rung that brought juniors into the fold has been seen in the past as well. The likes of Sandeep Singh, Sardara Singh, Arjun Halappa, Tushar Khandekar, S.V. Sunil and Shivendra Singh all came into the side as youngsters.

At the time that they made their entry into the fold, they were touted to be the flag-bearers of a brighter future for the team. True enough, they went on to become mainstays of the team at the senior level, but did that necessarily make the team better at a relative level to the other teams?

This wave of positive vibrancy has come before.

Teams such as New Zealand, Britain, Belgium and Korea in the meantime did not necessarily match India in terms of talented superstars, but found a way of developing winning teams. And this helped them stay competitive in the world helping them climb above traditional powers like India and Pakistan in the rankings.

Over the years, India’s ranking has slipped from being a top 6 nation, to top 10 nation to dropping to their lowest ever of 12th last year before climbing back to be ranked 11th this year.

So while the new approach has had a winning start, the road only promises to get more challenging from here on in. And it would be a welcome break from tradition if this current crop of youngsters coming through the system does indeed go on to buck the trend and catapult India into the big league once again.

Last year’s calamitous Olympic adventure should serve as a humbling reminder.