Don't renounce hockey, reform it

UMPIRE'S POST

We lost out in the game because of a technological shift to astro turf. Can we not recapture the old glory?

All eyes are rivetted on the Indian cricket team, ninth in the Maruti-Suzuki ranking of 12 one-day international teams, as it battles Bangladesh, two places above, in stifling heat and dust. The first match of the series was an insipid encounter won by the team that made fewer errors.

Most mainstream newspapers have been devoting at least a page everyday, replete with interviews and features, and television channels their prime time to the non-event.

In obscure corners, you will find India's rivetting progress in the Sultan Azlan Shah hockey tournament in Malaysia in which we lost a cliff-hanger semi-final to the host nation late Friday evening.

In the previous match, the young Indian team, led by a new captain and a new coach, defied the odds by beating Argentina 2-0 to qualify for the semis. It scored two field goals "" an increasingly uncommon event in today's hockey, in which penalty-corner specialists are a team's crown jewels. It was a high-pressure match. India needed a win to qualify for the semis, while Argentina needed only a draw. The goals came in the dying minutes.

The same day, the Union sports ministry relegated hockey, still the national game, from the priority list to the general category, a move that will cut the annual grant to the sport by half.

True, Indian hockey has failed to shine for a long time. The team failed to win a medal for the first time at the Asian Games in Qatar last year, finished 11th out of 12 teams at the World Cup, sixth at the 2006 Commonwealth Games and last in the Champions Trophy.

Now, it faces the prospect of missing the Olympics for the first time. Its last chance to qualify is early next year when three tournaments, each with six teams, take place to decide the last three slots.

Yet, it has hung on to a top-10 position in world rankings despite the apathy of the Indian Hockey Federation.

Indian hockey, in its glory days, dominated the world like no team ever has in any game. We bagged the gold at six consecutive Olympics from 1928 to 1956, winning 24 matches, scoring 178 goals (at an average of 7.43 goals a match) and conceding only seven. Two more golds came at Tokyo in 1964 and Moscow in 1980.

Was it correct to downgrade hockey? Can we not reform the game's administration? When court battles are being fought over the working of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, it is baffling that K P S Gill is allowed to run IHF as his personal fiefdom.