In the striking circle

WE felt real bad after the match,8217;8217; said this Indian hockey player. He was narrating his feeling after the final of the Busan Asia...

WE felt real bad after the match,8217;8217; said this Indian hockey player. He was narrating his feeling after the final of the Busan Asian Games this year where they lost 3-4.

8216;8216;So what if we lost, we had performed one of the most spirited showings by an Indian team in recent years. But there was no word of encouragement from IHF officials, forget appreciation for the fightback in those brilliant 20 minutes in the second half after being down 0-3. All that the IHF chief KPS Gill said to us was: 8216;Okay boys, we will meet in Delhi8217;.8217;8217;

Nnever a dull moment with Dhanraj around
If the world tennis had John McEnroe in the 80s, Indian hockey has Dhanraj Pillay. When his stick does the talking he is a genius and when his tongue comes in picture it creates controversy.

Often hounded for the wrong reasons, he made news for coming out in the open with what everyone in the Indian team and IHF knew was happening. Pillay8217;s accusation that players from certain region were not passing the ball to him in the Champions Trophy bronze playoff against Pakistan created a furore and this time the striker himself was not able to cope with the lashback.

However, the team-man that he is, the 34-year-old Dhanraj, performed brilliantly in the Asian Games tournament after the controversy. However, the mercurial striker who had never got a red card in his career was in the eye of another storm at a domestic tournament. Pillay got into a bad spat with the umpire in the finals after his team lost.

Sacking drama
Arguably the most modern hockey coach in Asia, India8217;s Cedric D8217;Souza will be now be remembered as the only coach to be sacked by remote control while the World Cup was on. It certainly was a loss to Indian hockey but IHF officials didn8217;t lose sleep over the serial sacking of their 13th coach in 11 years. Cedric got the pink slip for India8217;s disastrous show in the initial rounds at the World Cup in Kuala Lumpur.

Unbelievable but true, that8217;s the mindset of our hockey stars who despite a creditable showing at the Champions Trophy at Cologne and Busan this year.

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There was no BCCI-like incentives for the hockey players and this non-chalance towards the team rankled them. Clearly professionalism did not enter the doors of IHF this year too as yet another national coach was shown the exit at the beginning of the year.

The year will be remembered in hockey, not because India won any major title or the IHF threatened to sack more players but because the players finally showed that they understood the importance of representating the country and performing for their own pride.

The young players showed more grit and determination than some of their predecessors in the traditional battle against Pakistan, having the better of the three exchanges, including the semifinals in the Asiad. In fact, Dhanraj described the winning goal that 22-year-old Gagan Ajit Singh scored in the semis as the best he had seen in his 12-year career.

One more year passed with mere promises from the IHF that the National League was on the anvil. Unimaginative scheduling saw the national players turning up for half a dozen domestic tournaments after their hectic international itinerary got over with the Asiad.