If India are indeed to play at the Olympic Games at Athens next year, they would need to take heed of some important lessons from the recent Champions Trophy in Holland. It’s another matter, of course, that the Indian think-tank is growing averse to criticism: former German coach Horst Wein was ridiculed when he said Indians had a ‘‘mental block’’ on this but there’s truth in his statement. Indian hockey needs to change with the game if it wants to catch up with the rest of the world. The team wasn’t facing international flak because they finished fourth in the Champions Trophy but they lacked freshness in their approach and strategy. Experts said India was playing the same brand of hockey for the last many decades, the point Wein made. TOURNAMENTS AHEAD ASIA CUP (Sept 21-28, Kuala Lumpur): If the players are tired now, there’s no point in sending the full team to the Asia Cup. Better to follow the example of the Germans, who sent their second-string to the Champions Trophy to concentrate on qualifying for Athens AFRO-ASIAN GAMES (October-November, Hyderabad) India will go all out for a win and there will probably be some more candidates for the Arjuna Award next year. Target Athens will be forgotten for short-term compulsions HOLLAND TOUR OF INDIA (Jan 2004): Holland leave crucial matters to their chief coach and not to the whims of their officials. Joost Bellaart called up IHF secretary K Jothikumaran in Amstelveen and told him they were interested in playing a Test series in India. And only in Hyderabad, where the climate will be similar to that of Athens in August-September OLYMPIC QUALIFIERS (March 2004, Madrid): This is where it will all be decided There isn’t much time to plan an overhaul of Indian hockey, and it certainly isn’t time, as some quarters have suggested, for a foreign coach. All that can wait till after Athens, providing we get there. Meanwhile: QUALIFYING TOURNAMENT First, the think-tank has to plan for the qualifying tournament, to be held in Spain next March. So far, Korea and Argentina — winners of their respective continental championship — have qualified, and will be joined by the champions from Europe (likely to be the Netherlands), Oceania region and Africa. The final qualifying meet, in Madrid from March 2-13, includes the hosts and 11 other countries selected on the basis of their placings in the 2002 World Cup (India had finished 10th). Six of these 12 teams will qualify for the Olympics in case the host country, Greece, fails to qualify (via a play-off with the 12th-ranked team in the Spain meet). SUPPORT STAFF FOR COACH Coach Rajinder Singh has several jobs to do at once (including making hotel bookings. What he needs, and currently lacks, is a proper think-tank, a support structure. At present he has goalkeeping coach AB Subbaiah, who’s done a tremendous job with keeper Devesh Chauhan; the IHF would do well to appoint a panel of reputed Indian coaches who are familiar to modern hockey to support the think-tank. Amazingly, the coaching staff lack a video analyser, commonplace in most other teams — Subbaiah was moving around the stadium with his personal handycam. Also psychologists, physios and other staff to provide inputs to their coach. The Australian team that came second at the Champions Trophy had an eight-member support staff to assist coach Barry Dancer. THE JUGRAJ FACTOR The most important issue that needs to be discussed is the flaw in the team management’s strategy to play defender Jugraj Singh, the main drag-flicker, as a midfielder. Of late Jugraj and defender Dilip Tirkey have emerged as the main experts for penalty-corners. Jugraj’s position in the team must be strengthened but his role must be defined properly since there are serious flaws in his game that need ironing out. Jugraj was selected in the team as a defender after the Junior World Cup in 2001 but had to be moved into the midfield after the 2002 Asian Games due to specific problems in his game: he has a tendency to put on weight and it has slowed down his recovery in the midfield while facing a counterattack. Besides, Jugraj’s tackling and clearance skills have got the team in trouble in the 25-yard area, leading to many PCs against India in earlier tournaments and in this Champions Trophy too. There is no doubt that the youngster is among the team’s more spirited players and he was instrumental in the 7-4 fightback in the last league match against Pakistan. But the problem surfaced again in the bronze playoff as India conceded nine penalty corners against none received. The Pakistanis, by contrast, put their drag-flicker Sohail Abbas in charge to take the free hits; he went for Jugraj, who fumbled several times and these fouls resulted in penalty corners for Pakistan. It is simply a part of modern tactics: Sohail had mixed luck with the PCs but he created so many chances that it put pressure on the Indian defence. Former Indian coach MK Kaushik agrees that in modern hockey, the team which makes less mistakes wins matches. ‘‘Conceding a PC is as crucial as scoring from them. If a player scores a couple of penalty-corners but also concedes some, it doesn’t help the team at all.’’ Jugraj Singh can play a crucial role in India’s Olympic campaign — he cannot be substituted regularly because the team needs him as the only drag-flick expert but the think-tank needs to iron out his flaw on time. DEPUTY FOR DEVESH Finally, the need for a confident deputy to goalkeeper Devesh Chauhan. In the last five years, the Indians have struggled to field two strong goalkeepers who can stand in important tournaments. In the 2000 Olympics and 2002 World Cup, goalkeeper Jude Menezes had a sudden loss of form and there was no suitable replacement. For the 2004 Games, the think-tank will have to train a reliable second to Chauhan. There are currently two substitute keepers in the camp — the talented Bharat Chetri and Kamaldeep Singh from Punjab, who for undisclosed reasons was preferred in the last few tournaments. These core issues, if solved, can push forward the Indian team on time for the Olympics. However, IHF officials still need to prove their seriousness with concrete action rather than demanding a foreign coach for their own petty gains.
