It’s time that the nation stood up in praise of the commendable feat achieved by India’s hockey heroes who showed the world on Sunday why hockey still remains the national sport. India’s 7-1 decimation of their arch-rivals Pakistan to seal a quarter-final berth in the Hockey World League in London epitomized their strength as a cohesive hockey unit on a day when the Indian cricket team played like novices and surrendered meekly in the grand finale of the ICC Champions Trophy to hand a spirited Pakistan their maiden crown in this format.
Yes, the fact that the big win in hockey came on the same day the Indian cricket team suffered an ignominious defeat by the biggest margin of 180 runs in an ICC event marred the reputation of the team led by Virat Kohli.
The team which is already in doldrums over the vexed issue of coach Anil Kumble being still asked to helm affairs until the next man-in-charge is chosen could not have helped patch-up the internal rift that is apparently existing between the senior members and Kumble. Though Kohli has been denying that such a rift does exist between the players and Kumble, Sunday’s proceedings in the final at The Oval could have dropped enough hints that all’s not well within the team. It was baffling to see Kohli deciding to bat first on a flat track on a sunny morning in London when the whole world was believing that India would put the runs on the board in the title-decider and ask an inexperienced Pakistan side to chase under pressure. Nothing of that sort happened.
It appeared as if Kohli was set to do a Ganguly ala the 2003 World Cup final in Johannesburg when the last named won the toss and decided to bowl first against the then defending champions Australia. What was to unfold was similar to what happened on Sunday. That day in Johannesburg saw the Aussies setting India a mammoth 360 for victory and in London, Pakistan merrily accepted the Kohli’s decision to amass a similar total - 338 this time. The result was that both the Indian teams utterly failed to chase huge totals under pressure when the order of the day should have been win the toss and bat first. The great Steve Waugh who has led Australia to many World titles always believed in the “bat-first” syndrome. He famously once said: “Irrespective of the conditions I play in, I will bat 9 times out of 10 when I win the toss. Even the tenth time I’ll still be tempted to bat first!” Pakistan deserve every bit of what they managed to achieve in Sunday’s final. For a nation that is reeling under serious security issues where foreign teams dread to visit them to play sport, the India win is an equivalent of Olympic gold.
