Hectic schedule ahead, India need to finish year on a high

BHUBANESWAR: For Manpreet Singh and Co, this will be the last opportunity to impress a hockey-fanatic crowd at the Kalinga Stadium on Sunday when they take on world No 5 Germany in their bronze-medal match at the Hockey World League Final.

The last competitive match of the year could not have been more important for Sjoerd Marijne’s India in the overall context of team building for next year’s busy calendar. India will be putting in place a ‘threepeak’ strategy for the Commonwealth Games (Gold Coast), Asian Games (Jakarta) and the World Cup in Bhubaneswar.

Marijne’s India is a work in progress as they stitch together a team capable of beating the top countries in FIH competitions, something they have failed to do consistently in recent times. India have only won bronze in the 2014-15 HWL Final at Raipur and silver in the 2016 Champions Trophy in London, the first few medals after a lengthy drought.

This Indian team is its own enemy. It is capable of traversing from sublime to uninspiring in no time — sometime in the same match. Interestingly, India’s recent surge on the ranking chart started with their win against Germany in the 2012-13 HWL Final in New Delhi. And, they would love to do so on Sunday.

In Bhubaneswar, the team got off to a rousing start by holding reigning world and HWL champions Australia to a draw. They slumped to a 1-2 defeat against England before losing 0-2 to Germany. However, they showed tremendous grit, tactical discipline and application in getting the better of Belgium via sudden death shootout 3-3 (3-2) in the quarter-final. In the semis versus Argentina, they lost 0-1.

Thus, the importance of Sunday’s game needs to be looked in the overall context of their progress as a team. Winning bronze will leave them in high spirits for next year’s hectic schedule.