No one, perhaps, knows Indian men’s hockey like Harendra Singh.
The perpetual insider who nevertheless remained on the fringes, Harendra knows his players intimately. After all, almost every one of the 48-member squad currently training in Bengaluru ahead of the Champions Trophy has been his student at some point, including the seniors like P.R. Sreejesh and Sardar Singh.
The Champions Trophy, which begins next week, is the first of three big tests this year — the Asian Games and the World Cup, the others — and Harendra is keen to experiment in the Netherlands.
“Two things will be very different in this side from previous Indian teams,” Harendra declares, explaining what he has been up to during his month in charge. “The attacking pattern will be very different, and the non-possession position of players and their game-plan will definitely be something not seen before by the other teams. There will be other, smaller alterations, but these two will stand out.”
Obsessed as he is with results, Harendra is also a firm believer in the process of achieving them. It doesn’t begin and end on the turf; the man makes sure his boys are constantly connected to the game, thinking about it, preparing for the next move.
“The first thing I did was send out a small questionnaire to every player. I told them what I was thinking and how I planned to help them chart a path to success, but I needed to know their minds first. There were a few questions I asked — their vision for 2018 as an individual, as a team and what they saw as demands of the country. I asked them what they expected from themselves and the coaching staff, and what areas they thought they could contribute to,” he says.
It wasn’t just a team-building exercise. “I want to see how many are on the same wavelength. I frankly don’t rate too highly any player who only wants to play for the country, howsoever prestigious that may sound. I believe you must always want to be able to win a medal for the country because only that counts, only then can we think of actually growing and winning,” he says bluntly.
This change in mindset is perhaps the biggest change he has been trying to bring about. He did it with the juniors but then he had three years and a free hand with the squad away from the spotlight. Here, he has had just over a month, under constant scrutiny, and the challenges are tougher. “The boys didn’t wait for the training session, each one of them came up to meet me with a smile at the breakfast table the day after the appointment. It is big encouragement for any coach,” he says.
On field, he has identified India’s strengths and concerns, and broken them down for special attention. Nothing is bigger than the abysmal penalty corner conversion rate the team struggled with at the Commonwealth Games (10 of 39). “It was exposed badly during CWG, despite India having four specialists, and is the area we have worked most on.
“We do not want to change their techniques. The angles from which they are taking shots now, they will never be able to score too many. The position of stopper and injector has been changed, variations planned, direct and indirect conversions practised. You will definitely see better PC executions,” he explains.
The other area of concern was the team’s co-ordination. “We have very clearly and definitively decided on the possession and non-possession responsibilities of every player. It has been made clear how much a player is expected to run during a game. They have been told they have to chase, fight, do anything to get the ball back. The boys now know whoever is nearest the ball has to work harder. There is no place for slackers in this team.”
And then there is running with the ball along the sidelines without looking down, something he spent more than six months helping the juniors perfect.
“It is all about peripheral vision. Many of those who were part of the junior set-up are good at it, but there are some in the senior ranks who aren’t. We have told them to roll the ball instead of dribble it. In that scenario, the chin automatically goes up, the peripheral vision increases, you can pass quicker. Earlier, the players used to dribble in our own 25-yard area, concede turnovers and goals. That is not acceptable, conceding a turnover is suicide for the entire team,” he explains.
He comes to his favourite part — outletting. It is his trademark, he admits, something that has given him an identity among the rank of elite coaches. He is in no mood to let go of it. “A team that knows how to outlet will have ball possession and know what to do to build an attack. Otherwise you stop, hold the ball, hit it and then you have an opposition player behind the ball,” he explains.
Outletting, for the record, is considered one of the most effective methods of building an attack all the way from the defence and, if executed properly, can give any team an edge in scoring. But it requires intelligence and supreme fitness, and while the second is not a big concern, Harendra is trying to drill the former in his wards.
He is keener talking about the team’s strengths. “We have a lot of good, fast strikers, midfielders who are mobile and defenders who are good in one-on-one situations. Most importantly, in Sreejesh we have a goalkeeper who has an aura and the ability to guide and command the team on the field,” he says.
“When your leader commands respect, the team does well. When he demands it, there is bound to be failure,” he adds. He has found his leader; now Harendra is hoping for success.
