For Indian hockey, rejuvenation is the need of the hour!

I belong to a nation that remembers Ranjitsinghji more than Richard Allen, C. K. Naidu more than Kishan Lal, Pataudi more than Balbir Singh Senior, Gavaskar more than Sylvanus Dung Dung and Sachin Tendulkar more than Dhanraj Pillay. India is a nation which speaks volumes about the 1983 cricket World Cup victory, more than its impeccable hockey record at the Olympics, and Laxman’s Aussie demolition in 2001 more than Dhanraj’s Asian Games magic in 1998. Well, there’s something in the above stated facts, isn’t it? What links these far–flung occurrences is an alarming reality of admiring one sport to an extreme and under-rating the rest. This behaviour is evident throughout the country. Hope you got my point here. I often moan about the lack of attention of sports aficionados towards games other than cricket. Rather than speaking about cricket now, I’d like to bring to your kind notice, the abasement of Indian hockey and its impeccable past.

Participating in Olympics is the dream of every sportsman. History has been made, records have been broken, disappointment has reached its boundaries, and happiness has seen no limits. It’s all life, oscillating between ecstasy and agony at the biggest sporting spectacle on the planet. For a few, the long wait of standing at the podium is over, but for many, it might never happen again. One such example is the Indian hockey team which participated in last year’s Olympics. From qualifying to the event in London on 25th February, 2012, to the start of the sporting spectacle on 27th July, 2012, many back home kept immense faith in the team hoped, that at least they will be ending up in the top four. But that was not the case.

As the days went by, and the hooter blew at the end of those 70 minutes, the decline story began. As the hockey aficionados back home awaited at least one good performance after repeated disappointments in match after match, the players and the team just took the downhill bridge. Forget about finishing in the expected top 4, nobody expected this bad a performance from the Indian team. For a true supporter like me, I still can’t come to terms with that disappointment.

It was a horrendous, humiliating, disgusting and simply pathetic performance from our team. Whatever you call it, the worst ever performance from the team that has been witnessed, finishing with the wooden spoon at Olympics. Let me tell you, I would have been much happier if the team had failed to travel to London rather than failing in London like this. It was an extremely humiliating moment for Indian hockey. Well, you might wonder why I moan about the Indian hockey’s outing at London Olympics even today, after the success of the cash rich Hockey India League this year. It’s because as a hockey fanatic and a patriot from the sub-continent, I want nothing but to see the eight times gold medallists at the Olympics regain their lost pride, exorcising many a recent ghost.

I myself can’t do anything at this moment for the resurrection of the game. It’s the current administration’s responsibility to create a joint hockey body at the national level and start developing and promoting the game from the ground level. At least then we would be called competitive and fight with the mightiest rather than just being happy with the tag of Olympians. Hope this happens at the earliest, and that the podium finish of Indian hockey is witnessed in my life time.