Is it the beginning of India's downfall in Hockey?

09 August, 2012

Politics should be kept away form the selection of players, and better infrastructure and facilities should be provided to revive the game in the country.

INDIA HAD a name in hockey decades ago and so it was called as the country's National Game. Unfortunately, now for the past four decades, it has been observed that there is a decline in the game year after year.

In the ongoing 2012 London Olympics our men's Hockey team has taken a complete U-Turn and touched rock bottom in its fortunes. They have played five matches and lost all of them. What a miserable performance.

Now they are playing against the South Africas to avoid the 12th position, the bottom most one. But our past performance was altogether in different orbit as India won Gold in 1928, 1932, 1936, 1948, 1952, and 1960; Silver in 1956; and Bronze in 1964, 1968, 1972.

Now, we have to find what made our Hockey game reach such low heights in the last few years. The downfall is mainly due to the controversies among the Sports Ministry and IHF - and mainly Gill, had a major role to play. The poor/ wrong selections is yet another factor that brought the game to a very low level. Lesser practice at the newly developed turfs they have to play abroad may also have created problems for players. Lack of facilities provided to the players is yet another element for the team's fall from grace. Can our Hockey Federation and the Sports Ministry wake up to revive our lost glory?