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With just over four months to go before the Paris Olympics begin, the Indians coached by Craig Fulton are all set to tour Australia after playing eight gruelling matches as part of a Pro League mini-tournament at home recently.
The Indian men will play the European leg of the Pro League in May and June before embarking on their Olympic campaign where they have been grouped alongside Australia, Belgium, New Zealand, Argentina, and Ireland.
During an exclusive interaction with Sportskeeda, coach Craig Fulton shed light on the selection process ahead of the Paris Games, the pros and cons of the Olympic pools, and India's recent Pro League campaign.
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Former coach Graham Reid surprised many by leaving out stalwarts like SV Sunil and Akashdeep Singh from the 2021 Olympics squad even as Shamsher Singh, Dilpreet Singh and Hardik Singh made it to Tokyo where India won bronze.
Craig Fulton, however, believes that current form should be the overriding factor in the selection process with no pronounced tilt towards either youth or experience.
"If you have a younger player who is less experienced but his current form in your training environment, and in your matches is good, you can gain from a selection like that," he explained.
"It's not imperative that you need to have four or five of such selections but you can do it and you can be successful. On the other side, you can also go with experience as long as your current form is very very good. That's the bottomline. We will see. We still have a few months to go," the South African added.
"Disappointed with games against Australia" - Craig Fulton looks back at India's Pro League outing
The Indian men lost just one out of eight FIH Pro League games outright during the mini-tournament played in Bhubaneswar and Rourkela recently.
A 4-6 defeat to Australia was followed by a shootout loss against the Kookaburras in the second match but Fulton lauded the team for two drawn games against the Netherlands who are the top-ranked side in world hockey.
"I think it was a good start, to be honest. We were disappointed with one or two of the games. The game we lost against Australia was disappointing. We did not play well in the second half. I take responsibility for that from a tactical point of view," Craig Fulton stated.
"We learned a lot about ourselves in that game. The disappointing factor was, I think, we let the second game slip against Australia when we were 2-1 up with five minutes to go. We made a mistake and they punished us for that and we then lost the shootout," he said.
The Indians held the Netherlands to a couple of draws (2-2, 1-1) while beating Ireland (1-0, 4-0) and remained unbeaten against Spain (4-1, 2-2).
"It shows, specifically, with the two Dutch games that we are very competitive. So, we are not far away. We drew with them twice and they are the in-form team at the moment so that is also pleasing," the 48-year-old stated.
"I think the games against Ireland and Spain, we know, if we are one hundred percent set up right we will have the better of those teams but you still have got to do it on the night," he reflected.
"If you have a harder Olympic pool, you have an easier crossover" - Craig Fulton
India appear to have been drawn into the tougher of the two pools at the Olympics which features defending champions Belgium alongside former champions Australia and Argentina.
Fulton, however, points out that the Indians will not be playing these mighty teams in the crossover which is a huge positive.
"It's kind of a mixed bag. Because it's the Olympics, if you want to be the Olympic champions, you've got to beat everyone anyways. If you have an easier pool, you have a harder crossover," Craig Fulton elucidated.
"If you have a harder pool you have a supposedly easier crossover. At the same time, if there is a result that does not go to ranking, then the top seed becomes third or fourth in the pool. So, you have to be ready to play any team in the quarterfinal. What matters is how prepared and how organised you are," he declared.
The Men in Blue who open their Paris Games campaign against New Zealand will not get a chance to play the Black Sticks ahead of the Olympics. A defeat to New Zealand knocked India out of last year's Hockey World Cup.
Craig Fulton revealed that the team management did try to organise games against New Zealand without success.
"We looked at that. We tried to get games. It just wasn't possible because a lot of their players are playing in Europe. We go to Australia next month and the NZ players will not be available," he revealed.
"We will know a lot about them when they play a tournament in June in Europe, a qualifier for the Pro League. We will be keeping an eye on them but we have got to worry about ourselves. We need to be prepared for any team whether or not we have played them," Fulton opined.
"Need to have all bases covered" - Coach on experimenting with the squad at the Pro League
Indian hockey fans were surprised to witness former captain and ace midfielder Manpreet Singh manning the backlines even as striker Gurjant Singh managed midfield traffic at the recent Hockey Pro League.
Craig Fulton pointed out that since only 16 players are allowed to travel for the Olympics (as opposed to 18 for other tournaments), preparing for exigencies was the order of the day ahead of the Games.
"While other tournaments allow 18 players, the Olympics are played with 16. If you lose a player, you then need cover in different areas. Normally you would have 6 defenders, 6 midfielders and 5 forwards so that would not be too much of an issue," said Fulton taking time to deliberate the matter at length.
"Now you have only 5 defenders. So, if you need to rotate players or if you have an injury, someone else has to play in defence or someone else has to play in midfield. So you need to have all bases covered whichever way you go," said the coach who took over from Graham Reid last year.
