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Photo P.V. Sivakumar

Getting a lot of stick Indian hockey

Did we say nobody?

The astro-turf hockey stadium at Begumpet in Hyderabad is desolate. Not a soul in sight. Parts of the green of the synthetic turf has turned brown, the joints are frayed and the fibre-glass players’ stand inside the rectangle is a story in itself. But the stadium is not the story, it is part of it, the children who keep away from the stadium and the parents who drive their children to cricket and tennis playgrounds are the story. The ad-money driven hysteria that sweeps the nation is the thickener of the plot. And a game that has changed from the time Indian hockey greats like Dhyan Chand, Balbir Singh played and scored goals by the dozens is the story.

“Hockey should be made compulsory in schools,” says P. Kantaiah, secretary of Hyderabad Hockey Association. “Our talent pool is untapped. Very few schools have playgrounds. Without playgrounds how are we going to get hockey players,” he asks rhetorically. “Schools don’t have teams nor do children have playtime. Colleges too don’t have hockey teams how will the game improve nationally. Other countries have invested in the game and advanced while we have slipped down badly,” he says.

“Whenever I listened to hockey commentary I used to wait for the dreaded word ‘lekin’. The moment that word was uttered I knew that our player had lost control of the ball. Hockey is now a team game. Dribbling doesn’t help. Pushing, trapping and keeping the ball on the ground are the skills we need and we don’t have. Penalty corner conversion is a team art, we are nowhere near perfecting that art. One Jan Bovelander or Rick Charlsworth or Hasan Sardar can undo a team if it doesn’t have the team effort,” says one former player standing in the pavilion of the Begumpet Stadium.

“It has been a downhill slide for Indian hockey eversince the rules have been tweaked and modified. First we blamed the astro-turf, then we blamed the penalty corner system, then we blamed the athleticism of European and Australian players, then we blamed the quick passing and the fast paced hockey and now we are blaming the federation,” says Krishna Rao, a keen follower of the game.

“The money that is floating around in cricket is obscene. It will turn younger people from the other games,” says Muralidhar Siddhanti. Former Olympian Mukesh Kumar blames the system, the federation and the mindset of the younger players who are stuck in the play-well-land-a-job and your life is made mindset. “Whenever India loses, a bunch of players are sacked and they are replaced by another inexperienced bunch. Players who make the cut get $20 per international match they play. What is $20 now? Then there is blatant nepotism where the selection trials are just a sham,” he says. “Hockey players are themselves to be blamed for lowering their sights, they want jobs or are happy with the few lakhs they can make from playing in the professional league. They lack the professionalism to make it big,” says Mukesh.

Just to give an index of state of hockey, one has to digest this nugget of life. A hockey player from Delhi is dating a Chennai girl. Her parents are reportedly against the relationship. Imagine their reaction if the young man happened to be a cricket player!

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