Dead End At The D

THE never dying Indian hockey dream is currently digesting its losses with pancreatic enzyme pills. And, though the totality of the flameout at the ninth edition of the World Cup in Utrecht is perhaps disproportionate to the brand of hockey played by the Indian team in patches, there's a species of penicillin growing on the hockey sticks of the players that sometimes irradiates a caveman feel to it. Says German national team coach Paul Lissek: "Holding on to immaturity is hard work, but the Indians seem adept at it."

While casting the Indian players as monsters of exceptional quality may be another example of media entertainment and angle, there's no denying, in the words of Ric Charlesworth, former Australian Olympian and now doctor and coach of the Australian women's team, that "Indian hockey might be at the dead-end branch of evolution".

It's not the match results we are talking about here. Though as a small bit of brick in the whole argument it's impressive enough. A 4-1 loss against Germany in the opening match, three goals conceded before the 19th minute. A 5-0 washout against Holland that sealed the team's fate, a 4-3 defeat against South Korea, a gasping 1-0 win over New Zealand—where we had eight shots at the goal but converted just one and were spared a fourth successive defeat by a splendid penalty stroke save by Jude Menezes. A save that nearly dislocated his right shoulder. And in its last league match, India lost to Canada 4-1. Says Indian captain Dhanraj Pillay: "It was one of our worst defeats. I don't know why I wasn't playing in the last two matches. After the tournament I am going to ask K.P.S. Gill (Indian Hockey Federation president) and Jyoti Kumar (IHF secretary) why I was sitting out. Unless we improve our penalty corner and man-to-man marking we can do nothing."

Till the fourth match the Indians earned 20 penalty corners but scored just one, a direct shot at the goal against Korea. Says former Holland penalty corner specialist Taco Van der Honert: "They're doing nothing right in the corner." Adds Floris Bovelander, another Dutch penalty corner star: "You need to be low at the time you take your hits. Also, hit a little bit away from the body, to the right. You also have to wind up before the push comes your way. When I wounded up for a hit I only saw the ball on my way down. The Indians don't do that."

Lissek agrees: "They seem to have nothing but direct hits in the corners. They are so predictable. Direct hits are becoming history, but the Indians seem always to be a step behind. Why can't you train Dilip Tirkey and Lazarus Barla in flicks? Make them do 30,000 flicks a year, 600 a week."

But let's move away from results for a while, to team tactics. In the India-Holland match, where India dominated the match for the first 20 minutes, and Dhanraj Pillay, Mukesh Kumar and Sabu Varkey had five clear-cut chances at the goal, the team just went into total disarray once the Dutch took the lead. Explains manager Ajit Pal Singh: "The pace is much faster than what we are used to." Adds Netherlands coach Roelant Oltmans: "We knew the Indians wouldn't be able to keep up the pace. We also knew if they didn't score in the initial quarter they would panic." Panic they did. Horst Wein, an admirer of subcontinental hockey and former German coach, was furious at the Indian performance in the Indo-Dutch match. Says Wein: "In the second half, the Indians were running around like cocker spaniels. Hockey is 90 per cent thinking, 10 per cent stickwork. With the Indians it's the other way round. "

 Wein is no new India hand—he was in Hyderabad for 10 days to train coaches last December. "Your players know they are not going to win under coach V. Bhaskaran. He's at a loss on how to exploit the new offside rule or coach the players on things like the sweep stroke. India should have persisted with Cedric D'Souza. At least he could read the game," he says. Adds Sandeep Mishra, editor of Inside Hockey: "Cedric was defence oriented, but we never lost by these huge margins when he was around."

To add to India's problems in the three opening games was Pillay's injury, visible even though he had been declared 'fit' by the team doctor. Against the Dutch he got passes that he didn't even attempt to latch on to. Says Pillay: "I was drawing away defenders. Creating space for Mukesh."

Of course, there was the problem of poor finishing by the forwards. Varkey, Pillay and Mukesh had three sitters each overall, with just the goalkeeper to beat. Says Floris Bovelander: "In a tournament like the World Cup you can't afford to miss chances. The Indians should have been two goals up against the Dutch in the start. That would have changed the whole play."

So disturbed was Jyoti Kumar after the result against Holland that he analysed a video of the match with Lissek. Says Lissek: "They were playing like school kids.Mukesh got one through pass from Riaz with about two seconds to beat the goalkeeper. But instead of trapping the ball first and then shooting, he tried a deflection and that went out."

 Then there are the rolling substitutions. Says Tom Van Hek, coach of the Netherlands' women team: "I think of all the teams, the Indians must have used the rolling substitution the least. Also, they are leaving too many open places in defence because of the way they attack. The Australians can do that because they are fit but not the Indians. They don't fall back like the Australians, the forwards have a tendency to park themselves up." Indian penalty corner specialist Anil Aldrin agrees:"Our substitutes can play only in a particular place. One quality substitute we didn't bring was Gavin Ferreira. He could  play in any position." Counters Charlesworth: "Perhaps they had the substitutes but the coach didn't have the confidence to use them." Says Pillay: "I think senior players should come in now. In the last two matches, I didn't even know who'd be playing."

 The new offside rule too is confusing. Says Aldrin: "It's becoming very difficult to defend. Our forwards move in one line. It's a predictable attack. The ball can either go left or right. But the attacks of the European teams are confusing. They interchange positions and use open spaces. We're pursuing a style of hockey that's extinct."

To complicate matters further, in the league match against South Korea, Pakistani umpire Zaidi Irfan made a hash of things. Says Ajit Pal Singh, "At least four penalty corners awarded against us were dubious. The FIH should see that if two Asian teams play, the umpires shouldn't be from Asia."

THE last penalty corner, which cost India the match, was called after the final hooter went off. Irfan's umpiring led tournament director Heinz Woltje to comment that he may have been 'under pressure'. Says Munir Dar, former hockey captain and Olympian: "I was watching the match from the stands and was embarrassed to death. That umpire couldn't have been given a match to officiate in Pakistan's domestic hockey."

It's time also for a foreign coach. Says Pakistani forward Shahbaz Ahmad Sr: "The subcontinent has a big ego problem in getting foreign coaches. But ask the Indian seniors after 1975, those players who generally keep boasting about how good they were, did they win anything? If they didn't, were they really good?" Adds Farooq Mazhar, chairman of the Asian Hockey Federation: "Pakistan brought in Dutch coach Hans Jonnilsma in 1994 in spite of a lot of opposition. We won the Champions Trophy and the World Cup after that. What Jonnilsma did basically was to convince us that if you play with four forwards and four mid-fielders, then the forwards have more space to move in. He also taped opposition goalkeepers for weaknesses. He moved training camps from stadiums to hotels. We had a back view of penalty corner situations through computer simulation. The most important thing he taught us was that subcontinent players took too long to recover from injury."

During the '94 World Cup at Sydney, for instance, when Shahbaz pulled a hamstring, Jonnilsma worked on him for 48 successive hours. Within seven hours of that Shahbaz was playing in the finals.

Says Charlesworth: "You desperately need some new thinking. You can't depend on one style of playing against all teams. You need a coach who can translate your individual skills onto a tactical dimension. I still believe you have the players to win the big one. You need a good mind." Adds Lissek: "Look at Pakistan. They are not a better team, but they have better tactics. Skill is good but you should know where to use it. The kind of players India has, they could be deadly in the D. But the mid-field is an area of long passes. Look at the way Spain shut up Pakistan with just good tactics."

 The new rules and the way they would affect hockey inspired much comment. Says Bovelander: "I think with no offside ruling, the last 10 minutes of any match would be crucial. Players are going to get tired and there will be more open spaces to exploit." Adds Charlesworth: "The new rules don't have a purpose. With new offside rules, teams are now defending with all their 11 players. It's a pity that penalty corners still dominate the game. The rules should award skill more. I personally think that for crowds to come back to hockey, India and Pakistan will have to do well."

And even as the Indian effort at Utrecht ends in a grand avalanche of despair, the thing to keep in mind, perhaps, is that while players cannot inherit the experiences of former great Indian players, they do inherit their possibilities. In the late '90s sarcasm, at least, is in full play. And for the hundreds of fans who had thronged Utrecht from all over Europe and even North America, it was coming easily on the tongue. For it not to spread like an uncontrollable rash, Indian hockey desperately needs some new plasma. Or we might have reactions like that of Joginder Singh, who had flown in to watch the hockey from Toronto: "What if they don't do well. We still have Tendulkar."