Whisper it quietly, but for what it's worth, Indian hockey – both the women’s and men’s teams – looks like it’s in a good place after many years of neglect. There was the memorable triumph for the men’s team over arch-rivals Pakistan in 2014 in Incheon, which led to an Asian Games gold after 16 long years and clinched qualification to the Rio Olympics. The women’s team also qualified for the Olympics for only the second time in its history.
And then in 2015, on home turf, India finished third in the Hockey World League to win a medal in a global event after 33 long years.
Now things are going to get much tougher on the final lap. After a long time, there is renewed hope that the Indian hockey team can finally win a medal at the Olympics, something that last happened in Moscow at the 1980 Games when they won gold in a depleted field. Even at worst, India must better its abysmal performance at the 2012 London Olympics, where it finished a lowly 12th.
A tougher test
The real test starts now as India travels to Great Britain to participate in the prestigious Champions Trophy, which gets underway on June 10. After this, the team will go to Spain to take part in a Six Nations Tournament. The results from these two tournaments will help gauge how much India has improved.
Six teams, including the seventh-ranked India, will participate in the Champions Trophy in a demanding round-robin format. The PR Sreejesh-led team will kick off its campaign against Germany, defending champions and gold medalists at the 2012 Olympics. The second game will be against host Great Britain on Sunday, whom India famously defeated last year at the Hockey World League. It was India's first win against Great Britain in 35 long years.
World champion Australia, the top-ranked hockey team in the world, will also be in the mix along with fifth-ranked Belgium. It promises to be a very tough tournament for India, and it will fancy itself only against the sixth team in the tournament, South Korea, ranked ninth in the world.
Can Sreejesh step into Sardar’s shoes?
It's important to remember, though, that this isn't necessarily the best team. India has continued with its rotation policy on the squad, which means some of the big guns have been rested. PR Sreejesh, who sat out of the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup earlier this year where India finished second, is back in the team, and the veteran goalkeeper will also lead the side because India’s first-choice captain Sardar Singh has been rested.
Singh has been a truly inspirational figure behind India’s recent hockey resurgence. To give him some time off before a tournament as big as the Olympics is a good move, but it will be interesting to see how Sreejesh deals with the burden of captaincy.
India will also miss out on the services of drag-flicker Rupinder Pal Singh, who has been given a well-deserved rest, along with striker Ramandeep Singh and defender Jasjit Singh Kular. However, seasoned first team striker Akashdeep Singh, who was rested for the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup, will replace Ramandeep Singh, while the experienced fullback VR Raghunath is also making a return.
All in all, this is an Indian team that is not short on quality. With quite a few promising youngsters like Under-21 captain Harjeet and defender Harmanpreet Singh also in the side, this is a squad high on potential.
Despite players being rested, no one is taking the Champions Trophy as just a warm-up to the Olympics. After all, as the stand-in captain Sreejesh pointed out, “Finishing with a medal at the tournament will give us a lot of confidence going into the Olympics”. Head coach Roelant Oltmans was more measured, stating that the tournament would provide a platform to execute tactics well, learn from mistakes and evolve accordingly.
This will be the last but one Champions Trophy tournament – the next one in 2018 is scheduled to be the final edition as the International Hockey Federation has decided to replace it with the Global Hockey League from 2019. India will be desperate to prove a point – its best performance in the tournament was a third-place finish way back in 1982. If India can go even one better this time, the team will be in perfect position to attempt a coup at the Olympics.
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