Bitter home truths

Indervir Grewal

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 21

The two biggest comeback stories in hockey this year have been those of Gurbaj Singh and Ritu Rani.

Gurbaj became the most expensive buy at the players’ auction for this year’s Hockey India League (HIL), bought by Ranchi Rays for $99,000. Ritu made a return to the national team, five months after retiring from international hockey.

Both having been out of the national squads — over a year in Gurbaj’s case — their comebacks came as a surprise. Both Ritu and Gurbaj credited their stints in foreign leagues for helping them maintain their fitness levels and get match practice.

Shortcoming in India

While Ritu went to play in Austria, Gurbaj went to Malaysia. The Austrian and Malaysian leagues are not among the top in the world by any means. The fact that the two players went there highlight a big shortcoming in India — the lack of a proper tournament structure.

Ritu recently said that one of the reasons behind her going to Austria was that in India, women didn’t have many domestic tournaments. In fact, the scenario isn’t much better for men.

Apart from HIL and the Nationals, there are only a handful of tournaments in India every year. This shortage of competitive matches makes it even harder for India hopefuls like Ritu and Gurbaj to break into the national team because the players they are competing with for a place in the team — the national campers — get top training and regular matches.

Junior in the cold

But the most harm is being done to the chances of young and upcoming players such as Varun Kumar, Krishan Pathak, Parvinder Singh, Ajit Pandey, Armaan Qureshi, Vikramjit Singh and Santa Singh. All seven were part of the Junior World Cup-winning team but were not selected for the senior national camp.

“Currently I am training at my village (Mithapur in Jalandhar district), and sometimes I go to Surjit Academy,” said Varun, a former trainee of the Jalandhar-based academy.

Despite feeling a little “disheartened”, as his former coach at Surjit Academy said, Varun is keeping himself motivated by preparing for the senior Nationals. But it is “hard”, considering the amount of hockey these youngsters would get to play.

Their teammates from the junior team who have made it to the senior camp might end up playing three tournaments till June, assuming they get selected for the team. 

However, for youngsters such as Varun and Parvinder, it will only be the Nationals in June, after which there will be a lull until September-October.

Hockey India’s website shows a busy national calendar. However, only a few events, like Surjit, Nehru and Lal Bahadur Shastri tournaments, are permanent fixtures every year. Most of the tournaments don’t feature the top teams like BPCL, Air India and IOC; and almost all have a knockout format. So, someone like Varun, who played for BPCL last season, will play only two-three matches on an average in each tournament.

Suspect quality 

However, more than the number of tournaments, it’s the “quality of the matches” that is a concern for most India hopefuls. There is a growing disconnect between the hockey that is being played at the international level — the Indian national team level — and what is being played at the domestic level.

Almost all domestic tournaments do not feature India’s best players because they are on national duty. This year’s men’s National Championship will be held in June in Lucknow. The top players will have to skip it because the Hockey World League Semifinals, a qualifying tournament for next year’s World Cup, is scheduled for June in London.

But more than the international tournaments, it is the national camps that keep these players from participating in domestic tournaments. The women’s National Championship is underway at Rohtak, Haryana, while the India team probables have reported for the national camp in Bengaluru.

Whenever the national teams are not playing, there is a camp going on; in fact, the 40 days’ break after the Australia tour in November last year was the longest in two years for the senior team players.

Inferior training

The reason for long camps is that the coaches can’t afford to give long breaks to the players as the level of training at the domestic circuit, including in the department teams, is much lower compared to what the national campers undergo.

That is not the case in most hockey playing nations, especially in Europe. At the junior World Cup, the major European teams’ coaches regularly credited their organised and highly competitive domestic leagues for their national teams’ consistently high level of performance; and they have uniform training structures from the junior to the senior level.

That’s one reason why European teams don’t need long national camps — the German and England teams had come together only about a week before the junior World Cup. Playing the leagues in Europe is a big commitment.

“We miss many tournaments because our best players are unavailable; that’s a big issue,” said a former India player who is employed by BPCL. “Most of our players are in the national camps most of the year. They are unavailable even for the inter-petroleum tournament, which is very important for us.”

The only tournament that is guaranteed to feature all of India’s top players is HIL. HIL is in some way undermining the role of the departments, which provide job and monetary security to many players in India. These departments are not getting any recognition or publicity; and by overlooking their contribution to the sport, HI is running the risk of alienating them.

HIL is a great tournament for the exposure and financial help it provides to the Indian players; but it is not a substitute for a national league. Indian hockey is seeing its best period in recent years, but to climb further in the hockey world, HI needs to streamline the domestic circuit. 

There is a great need for proper domestic leagues in all categories — men, women, juniors, sub-juniors — and with separate divisions; and the departments must be involved at some level.