Sport: National Game Or National Shame
Intro: The decline of Indian Hockey that earned its players the honour of being the finest sticks wielders in the world finds more space in the hearts of few emotional fans than on the international playfield.
The International Federation of Association Football FIFA World Cup 2014 wave swept the Indian masses despite no representation from India, and took away the attention from the India Men’s Hockey match with South Korea where the team was fighting to safeguard its ninth position in the 2014 Men’s Hockey World Cup.
For a nation of more than 1 billion with Hockey being its national game, it’s shameful that we have not been able to produce 11 world class hockey players. The nations once crazy for the game seems to have lost love for the game that made India proud in 1920’s and 1960’s: India team bagged eight gold, one silver, two bronze medals in eighteen successive appearances in the Olympics. The yore days are gone and the Indian Hockey team that once was considered to be the best team in the world that had a strong impact on International hockey doesn’t excite Indians anymore.
There was a time when Indian masses were crazy for hockey players like Dhyanchand who till today are considered to be the greatest field hockey player of all time. After winning the 1975 World Cup, India has not been able to make any mark in the rest World Cups. Year after year, India’s performance is getting bad to worse. The last memory of a good performance by the Indian hockey team dates back to the Olympic gold medal at Moscow in 1980.
When India Men’s Hockey team was going to Netherland to play the 13th World Cup this year, there were high expectations from the young team to perform better under the captaincy of Sardar Singh but, the results were embarrassing. The team has failed to perform and its report card at the Hockey World Cup so far at The Hague, Netherlands, has gone from bad to worse. The Indian team that was at the 8th position in the World Cup has come down to 9th position. Even in the Junior Hockey World Cup, India finished at a disappointing 10th position. The Hockey World Cup ended with Australia winning the Men’s trophy for the second consecutive time (it being their 3rd World Cup win over all.)
Hockey India, an apex body of the country which has the sole mandate to govern and conduct all activities for both men and women hockey in India has constituted a strong 11-member committee to evaluate India's pathetic performance in the World Cup at The Hague, Netherlands. The members of the panel which will conduct post mortem of the team's performance are Harbinder Singh, Ajit Pal Singh, Col Balbir Singh, B P Govinda, Ashok Kumar, S S Grewal, Jagbir Singh, A B Subbaiah and Samir Dad.
On the whole issue M P Singh, Former player & Coach Indian Men’s Hockey told Organiser, “I feel sad looking at the decline of Indian Hockey. At one time there were players with golden touch in their sticks. Today after spending crores on players and team coach, the output is zero. All teams play ‘attacking hockey’ which is an old Asian Hockey style while India plays ‘defensive hockey’ The other major problem is that we are running behind foreign coach, why Indian coaches are not considered, I don’t get.” He added, “Young players lack stamina and are not able to play 15 minute continuously. Fitness camp should be conducted for players to build stamina. And I feel because we are not handling our hockey properly the game is on a decline. Constituting a committee is not the solution to problems. Blaming coaches, federations and officials is not the solution. For the betterment of the sport, the Indian hockey federation and the team must look within for solutions for future of Indian Hockey. It’s not late to take initiatives to save our national game which is the verge of converting into national shame.
-Nishant Kumar Azad
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