Say it quietly, but Indian hockey has made a silent resurgence in 2016

Long before biopics inspired by sportspersons dotted Bollywood, there came a movie on Indian women’s hockey in 2007. Chak De! India was seen as an inspiration, and the title song gained a cult following that is present even today, blaring all over when the Indian national team plays, regardless of the sport.

Sadly, the movie did not seem to impact the sport upon which it was based, as the Indian hockey team failed to make the cut for the Beijing Olympics, held a year after the movie’s release, in 2008. It was the nadir for Indian representation in the sport, for a country that boasted of an octet of medals in the discipline in the quadrennial tournament.

Post the debacle of the Beijing Games, sporadic success did come India’s way in what was once its national game. None of these successes translated to much in the bigger tournaments, including the 2012 London Olympics, for which the team qualified, before finishing last among all other participants.

A re-emerging force

Eight years on, 2016 is seeing the Indian hockey contingent’s re-emergence as a qualitative unit and not merely as a has-been. It has been a slow process, but a decided one at that, giving tangibility to Hockey India's efforts in trying to reclaim lost ground within the sport. A major contributor to this success is that there is no intermittence to the team’s good showings, but a continuity that has it backing itself. Just as much after losses, as much following wins.

An example of this positive trajectory can be made of its exploits at the Rio Olympics, when the men’s team reached the quarter-finals for the first time in 36 years, losing to eventual silver medallists Belgium 3-1, despite having a 1-0 lead initially. Before its defeat to Belgium, the Indian team, placed in Group B put up a commendable performance, notching wins against Ireland and Argentina – the team, which went on to win the gold medal – and losing narrowly to Germany and Netherlands. Needing to win against Canada in last group match, the 2-2 draw cost the Indians a chance to get to the pre-penultimate round as the third placed team above Argentina.

How Oltmans has helped

The team’s focus did not turn inward, dwelling on the circumstantial possibilities of what its match against Canada offered, but moved toward other fixtures. One of which was the Asian Champions Trophy that it regained after five years, defeating Pakistan in the final, last Sunday.

The players have received hearty welcomes and much as they deserve it, head coach Roelant Oltmans deserves more than his share, having helped the team take its current shape. Not just at the ACT or the Rio Games, but as an overall steadying and calming influence, giving the players room to bring out their best. The Indian captain PR Sreejesh noted as much, when he pointed out, “The biggest quality about Roelant is his understanding. He understands the players really well and tries to get the best out of them. In the last few years, he has developed a core group of players. His faith and determination in the players is paying off.”

Prior to Oltmans, the Indian team’s tryst with foreign coaches ended shortly and acrimoniously, with a divide coming up between the administrators and coaches. The unsettling atmosphere seemingly made its way onto the team’s performance, turning it into a vicious cycle.

Oltmans’s appointment as the coach came as a last-ditch effort to change the team’s fortunes, last year and what had been a short-term engagement until the 2016 Olympics has now been deservingly extended for four more years, until the 2020 Tokyo Games.

Making peace with the past

The team will undoubtedly benefit from Oltmans overseeing their furtherance. Beyond the realm of coaching, it has also been of equal significance for the team’s prospects that Indian hockey has made its peace with its past.

The legacy of being former eight-time Olympians may have made for fond nostalgia, but it was not so for each new generation of hockey players, for whom it was the pre-set standard they were expected to live up to. And each time the team failed, it looked to tar the players. Much as it seemed to blight history.

It has not been the case, this time. For once, while the country’s prolific history in hockey was mentioned, it did not become a source of comparison. In that, the current hockey team has been most successful. It has forged its own identity, even as it has kept itself away from what has long been a rhetorical narration of Indian hockey’s past exploits.