Indian hockey has been right here earlier than: At a juncture the place it has to decide on between stability and chaos.
Within the final decade alone, they’ve been at this crossroads a number of occasions: as soon as, after the triumphant 2014 Asian Video games marketing campaign, then following a median Rio Olympics, and later, with a sub-par 2018 World Cup. Every time, it shot itself within the foot, choosing disruption by sacking the coach and setting into movement a sequence of occasions that ensured the workforce by no means moved ahead.
One hopes they received’t go down the identical route this time. For, coach Graham Reid has not simply ensured India’s return to the Olympic podium after 4 many years, but in addition injected a dose of stability that Indian hockey had been longing for.
India bow out of the #HWC2023 after dropping to New Zealand in penalty shootouts 💔
🇮🇳IND 3-3 NZL🇳🇿
(SO: 4-5)#HockeyIndia #IndiaKaGame #HWC2023 #HockeyWorldCup2023 @CMO_Odisha @sports_odisha @IndiaSports @Media_SAI @BlackSticks pic.twitter.com/EPcLlJhtrg— Hockey India (@TheHockeyIndia) January 22, 2023
It was considered one of his stipulations for accepting the India job in 2019. “In my preliminary letter that I wrote (to Hockey India), I stated, ‘look, I imagine this workforce wants some stability and consistency, even when it’s not incredible, no matter… if it’s steady, then not less than you give them a chance,” Reid had informed The Indian Categorical earlier than the World Cup, the place his workforce suffered an embarrassing exit after dropping to New Zealand in Sunday’s quarterfinal playoff.
It’s a unique query if Reid – who seemed sullen and misplaced for explanations after the defeat – chooses to proceed or stroll away. However Hockey India should know the coach isn’t the issue. If something, Reid’s stint has confirmed that if a coach is given a protracted rope, he’s more likely to make a much bigger distinction.
A change of coach proper now would imply little or no time for the brand new particular person to take management of the workforce forward of September’s Asian Video games, an Olympic qualifying event. Failure to win a gold medal in Hangzhou would then depart the workforce dealing with a stress state of affairs within the last qualifying event early subsequent 12 months. Evidently, it could completely derail the workforce’s Paris 2024 marketing campaign.
That save by Leon Hayward! #HWC2023
This match profitable save is the JSP Basis Second of the day from the primary day of crossovers on the FIH Odisha Hockey Males’s World Cup 2023.#HockeyEquals #Hockey #blacksticks @BlackSticks @JSPLFoundation pic.twitter.com/ax9p3fLyku
— Worldwide Hockey Federation (@FIH_Hockey) January 23, 2023
However all this doesn’t absolve Reid of his missteps.
In hindsight, there have been sufficient hints that India weren’t prepared for this World Cup – the workforce had struggled within the Asian Champions Trophy and Asia Cup, was outclassed by Australia on the Commonwealth Video games in addition to the take a look at sequence and had blended leads to the Professional League.
All through this era, the workforce’s lack of Plan B was telling. India are an open guide for different groups, who appear to have sorted out their counter-attacking type and modify their play accordingly. Wales did that throughout the group-stage match, and New Zealand did it too.
Questions should even be requested about his workforce choice – it isn’t nonetheless communicated clearly why Simranjeet Singh, one of many stars of the Tokyo Video games, has been fully sidelined; or why Manpreet Singh, who led the workforce ably within the final 4 years, was all of the sudden stripped of captaincy; or why Harmanpreet Singh was overburdened with three roles – of being the skipper, chief drag-flicker and key defender.
Reid stated he’s tried 31 out of the 33 gamers within the core group in 2022. Largely, it was to determine his greatest mixture for the World Cup. Clearly, it didn’t work out as he would have hoped.
Robust bench power wanted
This example factors to the standard of gamers India is producing. The hallmark of an awesome workforce is that they have not less than three choices for each place. India, for many positions, don’t even have two first rate choices. In purpose, Krishan Pathak has solely not too long ago staked a declare as PR Sreejesh’s in a position successor. In penalty nook choices, there’s a stable dip in high quality if Harmanpreet – regardless of him misfiring – isn’t taking the flicks.
In midfield, India couldn’t even change Hardik Singh, who, although good within the World Cup, is way from being a constant world-class participant. This was evident in the best way India’s left flank received fully paralysed towards New Zealand, who blocked the attacking channels from the fitting thus disrupting India’s free-flowing counterattacking sport.
Indian gamers react after dropping towards New Zealand, within the 2023 Males’s FIH Hockey World Cup match, in Bhubaneswar, Sunday, Jan. 22, 2023. (PTI Photograph)
There’s a paucity of choices in each place and there was a visual drop in high quality every time the likes of Manpreet, Harmanpreet or Nilakanta Singh had been off the sector. And the truth that only one participant from the 2021 Junior World Cup squad, Vivek Sagar Prasad, graduated into the senior workforce for this competitors is one other pointer that the standard of gamers being churned out isn’t essentially of the very best high quality.
After the take a look at sequence towards Australia, Reid was requested if the up-and-down outcomes post-Tokyo had been right down to a scarcity of high quality from the bench. “…that’s in all probability the place we’re,” he had stated. “It doesn’t make an excessive amount of distinction with a workforce like Australia. Their depth is admittedly fairly good. That’s the place you need to try to head to.”
It ought to be clear by now that India received’t head there till it develops a strong home construction. Among the many high hockey nations, India is the one one to not have a league. Even New Zealand not too long ago began a four-franchise competitors which supplies its gamers with a pathway to the nationwide workforce – and the coaches and selectors a platform to scout expertise.
The impression Hockey India League (HIL) had can’t be measured in phrases – the Olympic medal is proof sufficient. Within the absence of such a league, there’s opaqueness to workforce choice, a little bit of arbitrariness even.
There’s the Nationwide Championship, in fact. However a two-week-long competitors is hardly an excellent platform. And as former India captain MM Somayya identified in his column in The Indian Categorical, the present format of the nationwide championship – dividing it into 4 classes with gamers allowed to compete in only one – is flawed and has diluted the competitors.
Hockey India president Dilip Tirkey has been in contact with the Worldwide Hockey Federation to discover a window for the HIL. The previous India captain made this considered one of his early priorities however the larger problem might be to seek out buyers for the league, which was discontinued after the 2017 version because the workforce house owners didn’t discover it sustainable financially.
However in a single type or one other, the return of the HIL appears like an absolute should for the long-term well being of Indian hockey.
India Hockey head coach Graham Reid speaks at a press convention earlier than the apply session forward of the match towards Wales throughout the FIH Odisha Hockey Males’s World Cup 2023, at Kalinga Hockey Stadium in Bhubaneswar, Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023. (PTI Photograph)
Drop in health ranges
The HIL additionally uncovered younger Indian gamers to a number of the greatest practices in world hockey and elevated the health ranges of the gamers to beforehand unimaginable heights.
One of many traits of the lads’s workforce within the final 10 years has been its health. The revolution began beneath former coach Michael Nobbs and physio David John in 2011 and peaked at Tokyo 2021, the place India, regardless of enjoying eight matches in 13 days in excessive warmth, by no means misplaced their tempo. The credit score for that went to bodily coach Robin Arkell and it may be seen as Hockey India’s failure that they couldn’t maintain on to him.
Underneath Arkell’s alternative, Mitch Pemberton, India have misplaced not less than half a yard of their tempo. The workforce begins matches slowly and has been unable to take care of the identical power ranges in all 4 quarters. In opposition to England, Wales and New Zealand, the Indian gamers had been at all times a step behind their counterparts whereas chasing the ball, thus leaving their defence open to counterattacks.
If in any respect Hockey India decides to try the function of the teaching employees, powerful questions have to be requested of the health coach whose function assumes enormous significance given how briskly the game is continually turning into.
💔Not the end result we needed. However our workforce will bounce again. #IndiaKaGame #HWC2023 pic.twitter.com/gJ76INwtZS
— Dilip Kumar Tirkey (@DilipTirkey) January 22, 2023
Wished: Psychological coach
Belgium goalkeeper Vincent Vanasch, one of many modern-day greats of the sport, neatly summed up what separates good groups from common ones. Talking about the necessity to change into psychologically robust, Vanasch stated earlier than India’s match towards New Zealand: “In the event you see with all the large groups right here, everybody is admittedly the identical. Technically, tactically, bodily… However then mentally, you need to make that further change.”
After the match, Reid made the same prognosis. “So far as the drills or coaching are involved, we do what all different groups do. I’ve been on this sport for a very long time and I do know what different groups are doing. If there’s something needed, a silver bullet on the market, I do suppose that (is) mentally,” he stated.
Not like the ladies’s workforce, who had a psychologist hooked up to them throughout their nationwide camp, the lads’s workforce has by no means had a psychological coach with them, Reid stated. For a workforce that repeatedly crumbles beneath stress, that could possibly be one of many keys to resolve the puzzle.
“We have to do one thing completely different maybe,” Reid stated. “Following this, we are going to work on how we are able to get a psychological coach concerned. I feel that is a vital a part of the way forward for the workforce.” It’s as much as Hockey India to make sure Reid stays part of that future.
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Drying pipeline of expertise?
31: Variety of gamers Graham Reid stated he tried in 2022 out of the 33 males within the core group. But, India appear to be missing choices from the bench in varied positions.
1: Variety of gamers from the 2021 Junior World Cup workforce who had been a part of this World Cup, one other indication that the standard of gamers being produced isn’t as much as desired ranges.
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“So far as the drills or coaching are involved, we do what all different groups do. I’ve been on this sport for a very long time and I do know what different groups are doing. If there’s something needed, a silver bullet on the market, I do suppose that (is) mentally.”
Graham Reid, on the necessity to have a psychological coach going ahead
Quarterfinal line-up
Tuesday: 4.30pm: Australia vs Spain; 7pm: Belgium vs New Zealand
Wednesday: 4.30pm: Netherlands vs South Korea; 7pm: England vs Germany