-Anindya Dutta
It was 1-3 at half-time in the final of the Asian Champions Trophy. At home. This was not the way the match, in front of the passionate fans in Chennai, was supposed to play out. The packed stadium sat stunned. A few at home switched off their television sets. Muttered curses floated across living rooms. Heads were shaken in mute resignation. Indian hockey. Not again.
The domination that Harmanpreet Singh’s team had displayed through the competition had done nothing to prepare us for this uninspiring display of hockey. India had marched into the semi-finals brushing aside China, Malaysia, South Korea and Pakistan. The sole draw against Japan had been avenged with a 5-0 semi-final blanking of the same opponents.
Malaysia awaited them in the final. Having beaten their opponents 5-0 in the league stage, the team was perhaps a tad complacent. The Malaysians, on the other hand, were ready.
‘I was stunned by the Malaysian defence and speed,’ Naresh, a friend who had travelled from Bangalore to watch the match, told me. ‘And equally by the Indians’ lack of intent. Going into half-time, I couldn’t see India recovering quickly.’ Venkat, another friend watching the match, agreed. ‘What worried us was the low conversion rate of the Indians,’ he said. ‘Physically, they seemed less capable, but more importantly, mentally, they didn’t seem to be gelling as a team.’
Here We Go Again…..
It was the middle of the night in Singapore, and I sat staring disbelievingly at the scoreline. Waiting for the second half to start, I thought back to similarly situated matches I had witnessed as a long-suffering fan of unfulfilled hockey dreams. The almost moments of denied glory I and millions of others had come to expect. The repeated disappointments that had failed to wipe away our love for the sport and diehard support of our team.
The most recent was just six months ago. Hosts India, playing New Zealand in the crossover match at the World Cup and boasting an unbeaten record till then, had led 2-1 at halftime, been tied 3-3 at the end of regulation, and were then knocked out of the competition in the shootout.
I winced as a far darker memory of a home debacle overtook me. I had been 15 then, and insanely in love with the sport. India was hosting its first major sporting event in decades – the 1982 Asian Games. The team had marched into the final decimating the opposition and winning all its league matches, scoring 37 goals in the process. Arch-rivals Pakistan awaited them in what was billed as an epic final.
Anyone who has watched the iconic film Chak De, knows what happened next. In a classic pressure-cooker situation with the weight of home fans’ expectations on their young shoulders, the team buckled mentally. By the time the fans trooped off in abject despair, India had lost 1-7.
The following year when Kapil Dev lifted the Prudential Cup at Lord’s, Indian sports fans were ready to switch loyalties. Cricket would become the lifeblood of the nation. Hockey faded from the national consciousness as the major sport. The decline had well and truly begun, and only a few diehard fans remained holding the torch for what had been India’s national sport.
A Different Game
Decades later, hockey is finally making a comeback as a widely followed sport. The bronze in Tokyo has been a huge shot in the arm. In that context, the second half of this final took on outsized importance.
Venkat described to me what he saw as the teams took up their positions: ‘Things changed suddenly,’ he said. ‘The players combined as a team, some great moves were initiated, the body language had changed. They could be heard calling out to each other, something that was clearly lacking in the first half. The shoulders of the Indian players that had drooped were now all back up. Communication between the players was clearly headed northwards.’ Watching on television, without the benefit of an on-field atmosphere, I had the very same feeling.
So, what happened at the break that changed things so dramatically? How could the same players who were not gelling mentally as a team, suddenly be actively communicating and combining as a team? I could hazard a guess.
In the change room was a man I have been closely associated with for a few years now – Paddy Upton. The mantra of his success is process and mental preparedness. Being 0-2 down at halftime, and how to handle it mentally, would be a part of the playbook the players had been put through.
As they trooped in at the break, shoulders down, Paddy would have sat them down and reminded them that they had prepared for just such a situation. They had agreed they had the game, the fitness, and the game plan laid out by coach Craig Fulton. It was just a case of raising the resilience within them for the occasion. The pep talk would largely have dwelt on communicating with and looking out for each other on the field.
And then there is the coach who had requested Paddy to join the team, even though the latter had never been involved with a hockey team. Mental strength, Craig Fulton knew from experience, was sport agnostic. It was the ying, to his coaching yang.
Fulton’s own job was tactics, strategy, and ensuring his boys played to their strengths. In his own pep talk to the team at the break, that’s what he would have concentrated on. As he said after the game, ‘We regrouped at half time. We knew if we got one [goal], we could get another one. If we got two, and had three apiece, we could then press and get the fourth.’
The impact the two conversations had, one mental, the other tactical, was immediate and dramatic in the change it brought to the game.
Naresh, seated a few rows above the centre line, had a bird’s eye view of what happened: ‘It was a different India team that took the field. They put on an exhibition of a well-coordinated assault with intent. The passing was exceptional, ball control superb, and India pretty much spent most of the third quarter in the Malaysian half. The Indian skipper suddenly took more initiative and could be seen all over the Malaysian half.’
And as Fulton had hoped, India scored, then scored two, and went for the kill thereafter with a masterful reverse flick that screamed into the goal. India had won the Asian Champions Trophy.
By itself, this victory is commendable. But it is only one step on the journey the team is on over the next twelve months. Being two goals down at half-time in the final at home was perhaps the best thing that could have happened to these young men. A setback is often the precursor to far greater things. What the coaches and the team did at the break, and the remarkable metamorphosis that followed in the second half, is what will, one suspects, drive the future of this team. The players are at peak fitness, they are comfortable in the positions they occupy, the strategy is in place. All it needed was someone to work on the mental aspect of their game. Now that final piece of the puzzle is in place.
Gold at Hangzhou would be a matter of pride. And the team will do its best to achieve it, not just for the colour of the metal, but much more crucially, for the Olympic qualification that automatically follows. The eyes of Indian fans may be focused on China after this victory. But for Craig Fulton, Harpanpreet and their team, the real prize lies thousands of miles away.
Every night from now, they will dream that they are standing, hand on heart, tears in their eyes, on the highest elevation of the podium, at the Yves du Manoir Stadium in Paris. The date is August 9, 2024, and the tricolour slowly unfurls as the national anthem plays.
They have a dream. We have a dream. Internalising it mentally and visualising it every night from now to then will take them halfway to achieving it.