Two years back, the Indian hockey team commenced its preparations for the Olympic Games in earnest with the FIH Pro League.
Having gone more than a year without facing top opposition, Graham Reid’s men faced and beat the best in the world—Netherlands, Belgium and Australia—to ready themselves for the toughest test ahead. That run finally culminated with the historic bronze in Tokyo last August when the team returned with a hockey Olympic medal for the first time in 41 years.
This week, the Manpreet Singh-led side will return to the nine-team tournament with renewed targets—Commonwealth Games in July-August, where India have never won gold, Asian Games in September, which will provide a direct ticket to Paris Olympics, and the all-important World Cup at home in January 2023. The Pro League will provide the team game-time, view of where they stand, chance to fix errors, augment confidence levels and improve ahead of important events.
“Straight after the Olympics, I and Manpreet discussed that this is not it. This is just the start. That’s been our message from the moment we won the bronze medal in Tokyo. We have to take the best of our opportunities from here,” said India chief coach Reid.
Starting Tuesday, India will begin a five-month campaign against the top-8 teams in the world to get as prepared for harder trials ahead. First up will be world No.13 France—a late entrant into the third edition of the tournament after Canada’s pullout due to Covid-related issues—before playing hosts South Africa on Wednesday.
They will get a two-day gap before taking on France on Saturday and South Africa on Sunday again. All matches will be played in Potchefstroom. While the French boys impressed by taking bronze—and defeating hosts India twice—at the Junior World Cup in November-December in Bhubaneswar, world No.10 South Africa will be confident after clinching the Hockey Africa Cup of Nations in January.
“South Africa will be very keen to continue what they started at the Tokyo Olympics (when they beat powerhouse Germany). They also gave the Dutch a good shake (in a 3-5 loss). We will have some video to look at from different games they’ve played,” said Reid. “France are up-and-coming.
It’ll be interesting to see what team they pick after they did so well in the Junior World Cup. Their younger guys are much more experienced and they also have a new Spanish coach Fred Soyez, who will bring in new influx of tactics. France will be keen to show they belong in the Pro League. These two will be very difficult and challenging oppositions.”
Hunter to hunted
The dynamics have changed in international hockey since Tokyo. From being the hunter, India will now enter the competition as the hunted, with rivals eager to prove themselves by beating a bronze medal-winning outfit.
“Coach had told us that every team would want to beat India now, especially Asian teams,” said Manpreet. “We have put up a benchmark. The only way forward is to keep improving. If we want to become No.1, we have to think like them. It is not a pressure, we must enjoy the challenge. We don’t want to underestimate any team; we have to go in with the same mindset against each team.”
Return of Olympic medallists
The squad also sees the return of Olympic medallists like goalkeeper PR Sreejesh, defenders Amit Rohidas and Surender Kumar, and forward Mandeep Singh among others, who were rested for the Asian Champions Trophy (ACT) in December, after a long gap of six months. Tokyo medallist Lalit Kumar Upadhyay and midfielder Jaskaran Singh, who were initially in the squad, were unable to take the flight to South Africa on Friday due to illness. They have been replaced by Sumit, who was also part of the Tokyo squad, and Gursahibjit Singh.
“It’s a very important year. We hope to start on a winning note and make good progress. The team is well prepared. Most importantly we are all hungry for good matches. It will be interesting to see how well we execute our plans which we have been trying out at the national camp,” said the India skipper.
Apart from 13 Olympic medallists, the team will also have two fresh faces—drag-flicker Jugraj Singh and forward Abhishek, making their debuts. While Jugraj hails from Attari in Punjab, Abhishek has played for the Indian junior team and belongs to Sonepat. “Jugraj is quite versatile who can play in both midfield and defence. He is very quick when he drag-flicks and scored quite a few goals in the nationals,” said Reid. “Abhishek likes scoring goals. He has just come from the nationals where he scored quite a few. Even during the camp trials, he was quite a prolific scorer. He is young, strong and keen.”
Reality check
India will look to bounce back from their disappointment at ACT where they finished with bronze despite going in as the highest ranked team. Though Reid had taken an experimental squad to Dhaka to try out the bench strength, India had to suffer a loss at the hands of world No.17 Japan in the semi-finals. Reid admitted the team needed a reality check after the high of Olympics; that their world No.3 status is not to be taken for granted.
“It will be baptism of fire again after Olympics; it has been quite long for some of them. Whilst everybody, including myself, hated losing that ACT semi-final, you sometimes have to experience that to learn from it,” Reid said. “That’s the message—this is what happens if we don’t treat every single game with the utmost importance. We see it in our kids…you tell them not to jump the wall and until they fall off themselves, they don’t understand. It was a really good learning experience.”