‘Choke’ de India

Bhubaneswar: All the noise at the Kalinga stadium here on Sunday night came from a small group of players dressed in black. As New Zealand celebrated their victory over India, a deathly silence hung all around.
For a while, Indian players were too stunned to even exchange commiserations. Tears of disappointment and dejection flowed, but most players were on their knees, heads buried between their hands. At one end of the ground, Akashdeep Singh and Hardik Singh sat inside a goal, lost in thought.
Plenty of retrospection lies ahead of the Indian team, especially the think-tank in the days ahead following their FIH World Cup loss in the crossovers against the Black Sticks. The defeat via sudden death ensured India’s wait for a podium finish in the competition continued. The Indians hardly inspired confidence in their four matches. An early exit was imminent. It wasn’t just about skill, India did not look threatening mentally.
What went wrong? Indian chief coach Graham Reid was just as baffled as the rest of the hockey world. Asked why India struggled to convert circle penetration and what was lacking, the Australian replied straight-faced: “It’s interesting, it is a very good question. I don’t know the answer.”
Reid was at the helm when India won a bronze at the Tokyo Olympics and his bewilderment perhaps suggests cracks in Indian hockey. New Zealand widened those cracks and India have no choice now but to rebuild from the ground up, especially with a year-and-a-half to go for the Paris Olympics.
TEAM SELECTION
From the team which won the bronze in Tokyo, 13 players featured in this competition. Among the six who didn’t, two — Rupinderpal Singh and Birendra Lakra — have retired. India missed three of those who could have been game changers. Simranpreet Singh, after being injured last year, has dropped out of the coach’s scheme of things and hasn’t been considered even among probables. Questions on Sumit and Dilpreet’s exclusion have remained unanswered as will the inclusion of some players like Lalit Upadhyay, Vivek Sagar Prasad and Nilam Xess. Misfiring midfielder Upadhyay’s only face-saving performance was against New Zealand.
PLAYERS FOR SHOOTOUT
The shootout scenarios are a part of training drills and it’s safe to assume the line-up for the pressure-cooker eight seconds is well planned. But one can’t help finding a flaw in the strategy. Harmanpreet (168 matches), Rajkumar Pal (26), Sukhjeet Singh (20), Shamsher Singh (51) and Abhishek (32) were the shootout choices. With the home crowd roaring, ‘we want a goal,’ only Rajkumar living up to expectations. To send out a low-on-confidence-and-form skipper with a bunch of youngsters proved to be suicidal especially when you had the experience of Manpreet Singh (318 matches) Mandeep Singh (198) and Akashdeep Singh (222).
MENTAL MATTERS
The perform-or-perish sword hangs over all players, be it a senior pro or a rookie. In the past, Reid has stressed on the need for a team psychologist. While most other teams like England travel with one, that hasn’t been the case of India. Although they have had access to a consultant and psychologist at Sports Authority of India, it has been sporadic. On more than one occasion on Sunday and in matches before that, India struggled in pressure situations. In the last 10 minutes against New Zealand, they ran around without a plan or purpose. Most importantly, India took the lead not once but twice and just when you thought they had the match in the kitty, it turned out to be all bluff and bluster.
PC CONVERSIONS
India’s primary weapon is penalty corner conversion. Over the past two weeks, it was as blunt as a hammer. To put it in perspective numerically, India have earned 26 penalty corners so far and converted five, which translates into a success rate of below 20%. To break it down further, two goals have been scored through direct drag-flicks, one each by Varun and Harmanpreet Singh, with the latter scoring when the goalkeeper was taken off.
TRADEMARK MISTAKES
Some things in Indian hockey don’t change and fluffing the basics is one of them. Hanging on to the ball excessively, back and parallel passes when attack should be the game plan was glaring among the strikers and midfielders. Man-to-man marking and game awareness was below par among the defenders in the crossover match. Sample this: Simon Child and Sean Findlay set up crucial goals after they were left unmarked. With less than 12 minutes to go, Nilam had a brain-fade moment and the 5-yard rule was forgotten. The result: A penalty corner which Findlay converted to push the match into shootouts.
India play for pride in the classification matches in Rourkela, first up is Japan on Thursday.