State of Indian hockey

The failure to qualify for the Olympic Games for the first time in eight decades is the story of the decline and fall of Indian hockey. Historically, no other hockey-playing country can rival India: eight gold, one silver, and two bronze medals in 18 successive appearances since 1928. Six of the eight golds came without a break in Olympic Games held between 1928 and 1956. Pakistan was the main challenger until 1972, when Germany upset the South Asian applecart and ushered in the era of European dominance. Indian hockey’s present plight has been long in the making. There was a failure to read the early signals of a paradigm shift in hockey, which were clear enough by 1976, a year after India won the World Cup at Kuala Lumpur. The game went through a revolution with the introduction of the synthetic pitch but instead of embracing it Indian hockey officials buried their heads in the sand. They viewed the artificial surface as an enemy — something designed to downgrade the status of sub-continental teams, masters of natural grass. The effort to project the International Hockey Federation (FIH) as a villain — out to create problems for India by altering the rules and insisting on unaffordable synthetic surfaces — was a historic blunder. It was compounded by a mindset of deflecting criticism by attributing the string of poor performances to the pitch, rules, and umpiring.

Little was done to restructure the system, or evolve a plan to reorient coaching. Suggestions that foreign coaches be hired were dismissed as degrading in principle. The frequent change of coaches and the constant shuffling of players were demoralising. The result was that, in the era of artificial pitches, no Indian hockey team has figured in the semi-final of a major competition (if the win at the truncated 1980 Moscow Games can be excluded). The FIH stepped in to create a special project in 2006 under the Olympic Solidarity Programme, roping in the Australian stalwart, Ric Charlesworth, to fine-tune coaching. Joaquim Carvalho, the chief coach who resigned after the debacle, has observed sensibly that “not qualifying for the Olympics is not the end of the road” because “there is still plenty of talent in India.” This talent can be developed and set free only if the hockey administration is compelled to change its archaic governance. Domestic competitions like the national championship must be put on a much stronger basis, a special scheme launched to nurture the pool of junior talent, and progressive measures adopted to generate interest in schools. The failure to make it to the Beijing Olympic Games 2008 should be converted into an opportunity to set Indian hockey on a systematic road to recovery

Article source: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/03/13/stories/2008031355581000.htm