Monday, January 20, 2014

India’s Hockey World League Final performance offers a harbinger of hope


If hockey buffs strongly believed in the saying ‘morning shows the day’, one couldn’t have blamed them for taking upon themselves to believe that it was going to be the ‘same old story’ – the sloppy manner in which the Indian team lost to England (0-2) and New Zealand (1-3) in the first two games could have probably buttressed that line of thought.

But the Sardar Singh-led Indian side oozed bundles of determination and josh, choosing to bring elation on the faces of their fans, which had earlier given way to despair.

The Yellow Shirts (wearing yellow is only a recent thing unlike the white and blue jerseys) dished out an uninspiring, vapid, schoolboyish kind of hockey in their first two games even throwing serious questions about their presence in the eight elite-team event on the ‘host’ quota .

It looked a sorry state in front of their home crowd – the team struggled to trap cleanly and didn’t quite know how to pass the ball around when they had possession. And when the opposition was raiding our citadel, Indians were woefully out of depth in terms of engaging in man-to-man marking, leaving gaping holes in the midfield as well as in their own ‘D’. Even the patience of the most ardent supporters of the national team was wearing thin.

The morale of India had taken a big knock as they faced world number one Germany in their final league tie. One is not sure whether many of us would have thought that India could share honours with the Olympic champions, let alone winning against them. Obviously, the scars of the first two games were fresh in the minds of the fans.

Sometimes, defeats can hurt a team and India realized that they let down their fans badly in the earlier games, producing an exhilarating performance, even coming close to beating the Germans before a Sardar Singh defensive gaffe allow their opponents to escape with a 3-3 draw.

Clearly, the boys were scaling a ‘morale’ high after the draw against Germany – they carried that momentum into the quarterfinal against Australia. India put up a memorable showing to dominate most of the part of the first half, taking a 2-0 lead before their usual bad habits (poor trapping and passing) came to the fore coupled with Aussies’ superior fitness levels, which turned the evenly contested game into a one-sided affair (India lost 2-7 after trailing 2-3 at the break).

But the fifth place match against Germany was the one which will be remembered for a long, long time.India had beaten Germany only twice in last nine years and nobody were keen to talk about such stats since the Germans have always proved to be a tough nut to crack. India did not seem like turning in anything out of the extraordinary when they conceded two early goals in the first five minutes of play and trailed them 1-3 at half-time.

One does not know what pep talk head coach Terry Walsh had with the boys at the half-time break, but the team looked a transformed outfit. The ‘Singh is King’ combo of Mandeep and Rupinder struck telling blows early in the second half and by the 53rd minute of the match so much had happened at a rapid pace – India led Germany 4-3 after trailing 1-3 at half- time and young Mandeep had capped off a sizzling hat-trick.

Germany did equalize but the team’s ‘muscle’ man’ Rupinder injected massive doses of self-belief among hockey fans with a final minute PC goal to trigger euphoria in the stands as well as in the Indian bench not to speak of many who were watching it on the idiot box.

Not many will disagree that this win over the world number one side is the best thing to have happened to Indian hockey – hopefully this will be the beginning of many big win over top sides.

India will have a bucketful of positives to take from the Hockey World League Final. Goalkeeper PR Sreejesh had a outstanding tournament – I’m emphasizing despite the fact that India conceded 21 goals in the tournament. It’s fair to assume that a goalkeeper alone can be singled out for leaking goals – he needs adequate protection from the fullbacks.

Touching on the Indian defence, one saw significant improvement although the statsbook may not reflect that. If you take the first two games out of the equation – one can notice striking improvements in our defence.

The Indian defence kept the aggressive Aussies at bay for most part of the first half, not to speak about their stellar showing in their two games against Germany. The Indian defence was perhaps at its best against Belgium when they foiled all their opponent’s raids and kept India in the contest. It a different matter altogether that a lapse in concentration saw them concede two late goals and the match to Belgium.

Terry Walsh seems to be adopting a new strategy of keeping certain players on the pitch in short bursts – skipper Sardar Singh and Manpreet Singh are prime examples – perhaps a wise move to enhance the longevity and retain the freshness of the players given the fact the year 2014 will be a year of big tourneys.

Indian forwardline is looking increasingly competitive. Mandeep Singh is emerging as the real bright spark for India – after being the top goal-scorer in the HWL semifinals in Rotterdam, the nippy young turk has again come out as the team’s goal-scorer.

Mandeep’s hunger to deliver can only crank up competition for places upfront – he is showing signs of taking over the mantle of the future Indian strike force.

Experienced SV Sunil also fared well – regularly coming up with razor-sharp assists for his young forwards besides donning the withdrawn role with aplomb.

Comeback lad Yuvraj Walmiki appears to have done enough to justify his inclusion in the side. Affan Yousuf’s senior international debut was a decent one – used in short bursts – the Mumbai lad showed a lot of promise and came close to scoring his maiden goal in some of the big games.

Birendra Lakra was given an extended role in midfield – he thrived on it and showed good skills while overlapping upfront.

The tournament perhaps belonged to Rupinder Pal – not just for the three crucial goals he scored off PCs, but also for his stout defending given the fact that he had two forgettable games against England and New Zealand indulging in ugly trapping and passing errors. The manner in which he rebounded after a poor start speaks volumes about his tenacity.

There are a lot of bright lights emerging from India’s HWL performance, and hopes that the momentum the boys have built does not give way to complacency.

On the improvement front, India will need to put high focus on three key areas among others. So many wins have been denied because India have the propensity to concede goals in the final five minutes of play – if we can fix this we can be dangerous opponents in the 2014 World Cup.

I’m not entirely happy with our finishing – though it must said that our strikers are looking to use both flanks effectively. Given our attacking approach, a clinical finishing will help us to consistently beat top sides.

As  I have said before, our defence is showing the right intent and they should now look to stay alert at all times and not allow lapses in concentration result in leaking late goals close to half-time or end of regulation time.

To sum it up, the performance of the Sardar Singh-led side offers a harbinger of hope for Indian hockey. Hope this performance translates into something ‘big’ in the 2014 World Cup.
 




1 comment:

Levine Lawrence said...

Hi Suhrid,
Thanks for this amazing analysis of India's performance at WHL. but i feel you are still presenting an optimistic picture. i understand this team is being readied for the future and there is immense promise. but sixth position in an eight-team tourney at home is a sad picture overall!

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