HANGZHOU: The sun has largely been hiding in Hangzhou over the last few days. As a result, temperatures have largely been in the low to mid 20 degrees Celsius. It was cloudy with a hint of moisture in the air on Friday as well. The Indian men's hockey team, though, lifted the gloom with a very un-Indian, commanding performance in a big final to punch their Paris Olympics ticket. The scoreline — a 5-1 win over Japan — reflected the gulf in class between the two nations. With it, the new regime has passed its first big test with flying colours.
When Craig Fulton gave his first full press conference after taking over as chief coach of the men's hockey side, he made no bones about his main target. "The priority is to qualify for Paris by winning the Asian Games," he had said in May. "That is our number one priority by using the Pro League, the Four Nations in Spain and then the Asian Champions Trophy to really set us up to be as strong and as connected as possible, to put ourselves in a good position to try and qualify straight away for Paris."
They did that in a largely convincing manner. At the Gonshu Canal Sports Park Stadium, they managed to avenge their 2018 semifinal defeat. Japan's forward line has caused some discomfort to India in the recent past. Since the Tokyo Games, these two have played out a 5-3 (India win), a 3-5 (Japan win), a 2-5 (Japan win) as well as a 4-2 in the group stages last week.
Usually, in big finals involving Indian hockey, there is always a sense of jeopardy, a nervousness given the history. Not this time, though. Penalty corners were converted with minimum fuss, whenever they went forward they looked like adding to the scoreline and the dangerous Japanese attack didn't cause too much of a problem. While it remained goalless in the first quarter, the floodgates opened after Manpreet Singh's stunning reverse hit.
That it was Harmanpreet Singh who extended the advantage as well as put the gloss at the end with a brace of penalty corners is also hugely symbolic. He cut a sorry figure after a failure to convert any of the dead-balls against the Black Sticks at the World Cup. Here, he was all smiles. At the end of the match, Mandeep Singh, who seemed to have damaged his hamstring, was dancing on one leg. The others were celebrating in a manner that was almost reminiscent of Tokyo.
While they were expected to deliver a gold at this level — they are far and away the best side and the Asian Champions Trophy in August again showed the difference between the best and the rest — the World No 3 have never been able to marry expectation with deliverance. In the heat and humidity of Jakarta, for example, they crumbled under pressure when qualification for Tokyo was up in the air. At the World Cup earlier this year, they folded like a house of cards. In that sense, Fulton can be quietly happy with the work he has managed to accomplish in the few short months he has been here.
While big shiny medals are always the truest signs of tangible progress, whether they like it or not, this team shouldn't be judged on what they win at the continental level. Malaysia, Asia's second-best team by rankings, are 10th and 800 points worse. Instead, they should be judged on their performances and whether there has been progress in terms of what Fulton set out to do. Even when he was an outsider looking in, he had thought of India as a team that was great at home while dodgy away from home. As soon as he assumed his position as coach, he put in place a plan to make them sturdier at the back — to be less leaky. "Philosophy wise," he had said in his opening press conference, "I would like to defend to win. I would like to have our defensive structures in place because that's the first step of attacking."
So, there was going to be a radical shift in the DNA. India's sometimes mindless attacking, where all of them would go after the ball without a care in the world for structures, would be going out of the window. While this remains a work in progress — they conceded three goals to South Korea only a few days ago — he has got the buy-in from the players.
That buy-in was in evidence on the blue turf in the final. A goalless first 15 minutes didn't spread impatience among the players. They trusted the system and the structure (a word Fulton uses so much it must be imprinted in the back of the players' minds) rather than chase goals, something they have always done in big matches, irrespective of the nature of the opponent. The authoritative nature of the results would have also pleased the South African — in all they have scored 68 goals and conceded only none across seven matches. The end result? For the first time since 1982, an Indian hockey side holds Olympic and Asiad medals at the same time.