Over the next few months, the future of India’s two biggest sports will come into the hands of two Australian men. First Dav Whatmore will take over as the head of the National Cricket Academy, just months after being a certainty to take over the national team. The National Cricket Academy has been in very poor condition of late and has been plagued with problems such lack of vision and continuity and Whatmore’s appointment might just be the tonic required to revive it.

But more interestingly (at least to me!) Australian legend Rick Charlesworth will take over as the technical director of Indian Hockey. The move has largely been driven by the efforts of the International Field Hockey Federation (FIH). The FIH believes (rightly) that the success of the Indian team is crucial to the future of the game and has launched a program to promote the game in India. Part of the program is trying to improve the game at the grassroot level in India and hence the appointment of Charlesworth.

Who is Rick Charlesworth anyway?

Charlesworth comes to India with probably a coaching resume that is on par with the best in any sport. After a stellar career as a player in the 1970 and the 1980s, Charlesworth took charge of the Australian Women’s Hockey team in the early 1990s and made them into the sort of dominating force that is now associated with the Australian cricket team. The womens team went to win the Olympic gold medals in 1996 and 2000, the Champions trophy in 1993, 1995, 1997 and 1999 and also the World Cup in between. Before the current role, Charlesworth was performance consultant with the New Zealand cricket team (did I mention he was a state cricket player too?) and has been in demand with the English Cricket board interested in hiring him. Oh, and he was also elected by the people of Perth to the National Parliament and was in the Parliament for 10 years.

Hockey Renaissance?

Since 1983, India’s national game has had the misfortune of being overshadowed by India’s obsession- cricket. To be honest, Indian Hockey teams haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory over the past two decades- a few bright spots (such as the Asian Games Gold in 2002) not enough to erase other failures, especially the ones in the Olympic Games. Frankly, Indian Hockey lost its way thanks to the inability to keep up with technology changes and the transformation of Hockey from a skill only sport to a sport also dependent on pace and power.

Administrators and former players have long complained about the lack of interest in the national game but a good performance in the Beijing Olympics will definitely bring the interest and money into the game. The Indian Hockey team seems to be on an upward trajectory under Joaquim Carvalho (winning the Asia Cup in Chennai and finishing third in Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in Malaysia) and is playing good attacking Hockey. (the team is yet to qualify for the Olympics though and needs to win the qualifying event in Santiago, Chile)

Potential Pitfalls:

Charlesworth’s road in Indian Hockey is going to be full of potholes. One, there is bound to be inertia from current coaches and former players. Two, Charlesworth (unlike Whatmore) has only worked in a system where everything has been methodical and systematic from the age-group levels. Three, Charlesworth has a reputation for being forthright with his views and this may not go well with the IHF. ( I am looking at you Mr. Gill). Four, people are expecting results far too soon and I get the feeling he is going to be judged prematurely.

Also, what exactly is Charlesworth’s role in the current setup going to be. All parties involved have made it clear that he is not going to be involved in the activities of the national teams but is going to be working behind the scenes. Again, this will require clear co-ordination on the part of the IHF, the state bodies and organizations like Indian Airlines (which hire the players) and our Hockey hasn’t exactly been famous for organization.

It would great if Charlesworth gets involved in the youth structure and looks at improving the technique, the strength and physical aspects of the players who are emerging on the national scene. Also, he is expected to be involved in training coaches and this could have a significant impact on Indian Hockey as well. According to reports, Charlesworth is set for the long haul and is coming with his wife and kids to settle down in December.

India is yearning for heroes (of any type) and if Mr. Charlesworth can help in any way in producing a few on the hockey field, this entire exercise will be quite worth it.

An article on Dav Whatmore’s appointment will appear here later this week.

India has finally reached the pinnacle of glory this week and I am not talking about the Sensex crossing the 17,000 mark for the first time. I am of course talking about India’s greatest-ever achievement in the sports arena - beating Pakistan in the Final to become World Champions in Twenty20 Cricket.

For all their toil and subsequent humiliation in this year’s ODI World Cup, the Indian players have redeemed themselves by their triumph in the Twenty20 format, a moment of crowing glory for a sport par excellence. We cursed the players, hit their homes with stones, promised we would never watch cricket again, after the ODI World Cup debacle but we will forever sing this team’s praises, at least until we win our next World Cup. I am sure a Ten10 World Cup is just around the corner.

In the midst of all the celebrations comes the dampener that Indian hockey players (it seems they won the Asia Cup a few weeks back) are protesting against the ’step-motherly’ treatment’ meted out by the various state governments who decided to award lakhs of money to the victorious cricketers from their respective states, but ignored the hockey players.

There are similar accusations against the Punjab, Jharkhand and Haryana governments, and Air India, and the Sahara Group, a sponsor for both the cricket and hockey teams.

Some of us might wrongly mistake Vikram Kanth, Raghunath, Sunil and Tirkey for Kollywood heroes but it seems they are some of our national hockey players who feel irked that the Karnataka government has announced a cash reward of Rs.5 lakh each to the members of the victorious Indian cricket team. If the government succumb to these players’ demands, before long all other sportspersons in India would go on a hunger-strike.

I don’t understand this entire hullabaloo about cash rewards. Agreed that some cricketers make millions from endorsements but what about a couple of lesser players earning much less compared to the crores earned by some senior players. After all, they cheered their team on from the dug-out and helped tie the shoe-laces of the players going out to bat. Tell me, who has enough money? After all, money is worthless unless some people have it and others do not.

Cricket is more than a religion (as any fan would reiterate!) in India and that is because we won the World Cup about 25 years ago and in spite of years of under-achievement, countless humiliations, and match-fixing scandals, Indians love their sports, which is not just restricted to cricket. We do cheer for Sania sometimes.

Just 11 countries from all over Asia took part in the Asia Cup. On the other hand, 12 countries (not including Namibia, Bermuda, Canada, Ethiopia) from all over the world participated in the World Twenty20 Championships. The Indians scored 57 goals and conceded just 5 in the Asia Cup but then Yuvraj scored 6 sixers in an over! We all know which is front-page news. And, Yuvraj will kick Tirkey’s ass right out of the ground.

Also, Shahrukh might have portrayed the role of a hockey coach in Chak De India…but we all noticed that the star of Indian Cinema preferred to cheer the Indian Cricket team in the Twenty20 final in South Africa than cheer the Indian hockey team at home.

The hockey players are envious of the cricketers just because the Sahara Group has decided to award a house each for the cricketers but gave the finger to the victorious hockey team. These hockey players should be satisfied with the commendation letters they received from the President of India. They can sell the letters on e-bay and if they are lucky, they might even manage to get the same amount of money that our cricketers spend on their hair-cuts. Those losers.

We have not won any medal in our national sport hockey (after 1980) be it in the Olympics or the World Cup. But in cricket, after years of ignominy, we have won the greatest of them all…the World Twenty20 Championships. With a feeling of smugness, we showered the victorious cricket team with flowers during their victory parade. Perhaps, it is time to make Cricket the national game. We do not care even if India wins medals in the Olympics and the World Cup. We will watch only Cricket. Who gives a damn about medals in other sports? We have won the Twenty20 World Cup and that’s all matters, this is enough to keep us happy…at least for another 25 years.

In keeping with this website’s tendency to write about anything even remotely connected to sports, this is a review of Chak de India: a very entertaining movie, well worth a watch even though it stars Shah Rukh Khan.

Based on the life of Meer Ranjan Negi, the movie is about a man’s quest to redeem himself in the eyes of his countrymen. That the medium is hockey is just incidental.

A bunch of women from around the country are coached by a disgraced former hockey star. How he forges the individuals into a winning unit, in the process earning their respect and trust forms the narrative. It is a movie with a standard under-dog winner template: happened in other underdog sports movies, even in troubled high school kids movies in Hollywood.There is a problem with filming hockey, I have found that it is very hard to follow the ball on television. It moves too rapidly and we at best have an approximate idea of its location. And in this regard, the hockey scenes in the movie are handled really well. That many of the members of the team have had an exposure to the sport is evident during the scenes. Kudos to the casting team for their choices. And what can I say about SRK that hasn’t already been said? The role of Kabir Khan only requires the only 2 expressions that SRK seems to possess in his repertoire these days: clenched jaws or a quivering face with glycerine induced tears. He handles both of them with ease.

In the absence of an obvious common enemy unlike in ‘Lagaan’, the sub-plots and the strong characters of the women provide an interesting back-drop without meandering too much from the main storyline. Though one feels that the occasional digs taken at cricket and the hockey administration should have been more forceful.

Yes, the movie will raise awareness about hockey and give some much needed publicity but it won’t change anything. Lack of encouragement for women’s sport (in fact for any sport other than cricket and maybe chess) will continue. Women will pressured to fall in line after they have got their government grants. Our training facilities won’t improve to the standards they showed in Australia in the movie in the near future. Former hockey stars are hoping that SRK will become a brand ambassador for the sport but I am certain that our officials will squander another golden opportunity to revive the sport. All in all a depressing thought that even Bollywood appreciates the sport more than the IHF.

The Indian Hockey Federation in all its collective wisdom, decided to start the Premier Hockey League in an attempt to revive the lost spectator interest in India’s national sport, and as a showcase for the many talented and unsung players of the sport. Many, especially the media, hailed it as the only good decision that Gill and his bunch of cronies had taken in a long while. TV channels were all gung-ho, what with all the television friendly rule changes and all. And a huge publicity blitz resulted. Hell, I even spotted people wearing Chennai Veerans, Bangalore Hi-Fliers (this was before ING Vysya Lionised them) T-shirts. For a moment, everyone thought hockey was back at the forefront of the Indian sportslover’s imagination. And then the games started…

PHL 2005 and 2006 were both damp squibs at best. In 2005, the teams still had no clue how to strategically utilise the time-outs, and the basic realisation that shorter periods of play meant that you had to go out on an all-out attack still had not dawned on them. They were still playing the then internationally standardised tactic of taking the ball into the opponents area, and then aiming at their feet to earn penalty corners. This hardly made for free flowing hockey, and spectators soon got bored. 2006, was more of the same with even more penalty corners, and drag flickers like Len Aiyappa ruling the roost.

PHL 2007 was preceded by an even bigger media blitz than ever before, with celebrity endorsements, movie tie-ins (Bhaganbhag), catchy taglines (Garv Nahin Tho Kuch Nahin) etc. But more importantly, the format of the league was changed with the two tier system being dropped in favour of a more easy-to-manage-and-follow single tier system. Also out went the perennially underperforming teams viz. Imphal Rangers, Delhi Dazzlers and the Lucknow Nawabs. And you had the entire Pakistan national hockey team on action, with as many as 12 of their players spread amongst the 7 teams. Given this, and IHF’s bullheadedness in not allowing some of India’s finest (though one may argue that Dhanraj Pillay is over-the-hill, the fact that every team wanted him in their folds speaks a different story) to plat the tournament, it hardly comes as a surprise that this year’s edition has been dominated by the Pakistanis.

Dominant Pakistanis

Rehan Butt, arguably Asia’s lone hockey superstar these days, has been in sparkling form for the Bangalore Lions. Len Aiyappa’s back injury has meant that the PHL’s top team and defending champions cannot rely solely on their penalty corner conversions to ensure victories and has seen them adopt a more attacking style of play, attempting to score as many goals as possible without relying on set plays. And Rehan Butt, with his lightning quick speed and ability to score from insane angles has led from the front. The other Pakistanis aren’t doing too bad either. For example Shakeel Abbasi has been the lone warrior in an otherwise dismal performance by the Hyderbad Sultans. Even the Indians are getting the hang of the Pakistani style of play, with Gagan Ajit Singh giving the Bangalore Lions a taste of their own medicine when his Sher-e-Jalandhar team thulped them 7-1.

PHL, might not have been the platform for Indian hockey players that it was meant to be, but on the other hand, we are seeing some good enjoyable attacking hockey once again, and that can only be good news. Bring in more Pakistani players, I say. Or Pakistani teams even; Karachi Blazers and Rawalpindi Bombers, anyone?

-Thejaswi Udupa