Resurrection is simply put, Indian hockey coach Craig Fulton’s biggest job on hand. In fact, never in his career would he have faced this big a challenge. Indian hockey, by now, known to him and the countless people who follow the sport, at their own demise, know it’s a sporting labyrinth – a complex structure, winding passages, some with dead ends but often designed to confuse not only themselves but the multitude.
Yet, when it works, it does leave you with a sense of wonder and play; like the Shilanand Lakra goal against Australia in the 4th quarter in the recent Pro League game in Hobart, the enterprising bit, apart from Lakra’s imaginative strike was the build-up started by Hardik through Abhishek, Poovanna with the Lakra screamer in the end. It’s exactly that build-up that Fulton and Indian hockey need now. Brick by brick, layering it up. Especially after the demolition that happened in Rourkela. And to a lesser extent in Hobart.
Let’s get one point straight here: It wasn’t a one-off or a series of rash results that had Argentina score eight goals! Neither was the goal aggregate in Rourkela, 5-19, an aberration. These numbers were building up. After eight matches, the numbers aren’t pretty either –
- Played 8 (Hobart/Rourkela)
- Regulation Time Wins 0
- Wins in Shoot-out1
- Losses in Regulation 5
- Losses in Shoot-out 2
- Goals For 11
- Goals Against 25
The silver lining, mercifully, was the two draws in regulation time against Spain and Australia in the last two games, both finishing 1-1. After the implosion in Rourkela, no one would have been surprised if they had rolled over in Hobart. The team, however, stuck it out, brought out the playbook that had made them unbeatable in Asia and given them the 2024 Olympic bronze; a team that had battled back from adversity against England playing with ten men for 43 minutes and then beating back the challenge of Spain in the 3rd/4th game.
That resilience needed to show its face. Hope is not a tsunami. It doesn’t start with a deluge. It’s a drop, a trek, bleeding fingers, bruised wrists, and scraped elbows, inch by inch, until you start remembering every rock, every outface, and every little crevice you ‘had’ encountered on your way up. It’s only then that you rediscover what made you good, better, and at times, exceptional.
“All’s well that ends well” would have been the perfect ending for the Indian hockey team after their last game, the shootout win against Australia. But the truth is far removed from that fact. To understand the recovery, one must first look at the Pro League debris.
It will not be out of the ordinary to say that India wasn’t just on a losing spiral, there was a decay that needed to be stalled. Right after the Hockey India League, the team assembled and played the Pro League within a week, a time many may say was not enough to get back the ‘team’ feeling. Yet, in a world of professional sport, you don’t just lose your bearings.
But it did feel the team had suffered a collective amnesia. Not only did they lose shape and structure on the pitch, but the players had also lost their power of expression. Against Argentina, that maniacal of a game, the team appeared to be playing inside a mist, in an oppressive grey tone.
By the break, seven goals down, they were wandering like haunted souls on the pitch. It’s another wonder that they gathered whatever they could of themselves and avoided a score-line that historically would have been a marker for generations. Now after Hobart, the numbers, if associated with a corporate, would have ensured shutters down – scored nine goals, conceded 25, a staggering -16 goal difference.
In sport, there is a success and dysfunction paradox. And like we are used to understanding that time ticks forward, we do assume that a team is either winning or learning. India, on the other hand, was caught in a loop of hesitation; the screwed-up back passes, the heavy touches in the midfield, the one-dimensional forward play, aerials falling short, defenders caught out in no-man’s land, goalkeeper’s forgetting that a flick may also be air-borne – that single maniacal 8-0 loss accounted for nearly a third of their total goals conceded in the first half of the season.
Mentally, it will take some turnaround. The third quarter against Australia in the last game in Hobart was the ultimate symptom of this rot. Jeremy Hayward’s goal off the sixth penalty corner wasn’t purely a tactical failure; it was a crisis of positioning. Watching Suraj Karkera lose his sense of the posts, his brooding left pad trailing just a fraction too late, was a reminder of how thin the margin is in getting out of a dungeon. It’s a damning indictment and an unfair one but when goalkeepers lose positioning, the team loses the match; the 2018 World Cup quarterfinal against Holland is a classic reminder of that.
Hobart, by comparison, saw some resilience. Flickers of a past, like burning embers, shrouded under the ash but alive. Dysfunction is a curious creature: it often hides the seeds of the comeback. Every match, game can never be about sublime skills, shadow dribbling, or those sashaying moves, they need a deep-rooted defensive mentality; that boxer on the ropes, taking and deflecting the punches, waiting patiently for a counterpunch.
In the last two games, against Spain and Australia, India had settled into a familiar gait – head down, stick held firm. They sat back for long periods and defended stoutly, reminding us of the discipline and resistance found in a compact, solid work ethic.
With Hardik controlling the midfield narrative, Abhishek relying on his pace and control, Jarmanpreet expanding the channel in front, Rohidas embracing the space around him, Shilanand Lakra hopefully understanding that it’s not only skill but precision that makes you a world-class poacher, Maninder muscling his way through the defence, it all pointed towards the return to preciseness.
Against Australia, in the last game, somehow, after missing consecutive PCs and conceding one with three seconds left, India finally tasted victory. It came in the shootout, where Mohith Shashikumar came up trumps, effectively taking Australia out of the equation. The takings might seem small but pitted against the backdrop of the hammering in Rourkela, when even writing an epitaph did seem a waste of time, it is a without doubt a genuine achievement.
The mechanics, at the moment, may be confounding, but the intention is clear: the climb back to where the team was begins now. And it’s an arduous climb – thin air, hound-like teams snapping at India’s heels, unforgiving terrain, and no room for maniacal lapses. To look for gains at the World Cup and retain the Asian Games gold is to go beyond survival mode. The only currency that works in world hockey, in any part of the pitch, across sixty minutes, is precision and discipline.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR FULTON AND INDIA?
There might be a 4-nation tournament in Malaysia (March) where India will play Australia, Malaysia, and New Zealand. Apparently, Fulton might create the unit that could largely play the World Cup. And then there is the Pro League phase in June. Between now and then, the mess must be organised, minds sorted, markers dug deep and a uniform philosophy, of which we saw flashes, the way both midfields opened and closed according to the pulse of the match. Those were moments of sheer delight. But to create something lasting at the World Cup, 51 years since we reached the semifinals, visceral moments cannot be intermittent. They have to be systemic.
The “long road back” is no longer just a metaphor for failure; it could be Fulton’s map for a brighter future. The shootout victory against Australia could just jog the memory cells into activating how a win feels. They now need to go beyond the surface dazzle to arrive at something deeper
