This might seem to be a little negative article. But this is important. Sultan Azlan Cup has all the teams who are ranked below India. Australia has bought its developmental side, you cannot call them the same world champion team. Playing against these kind of teams won’t fetch India even good ranking points. India plays maximum 5-6 tournaments every year and most of them are invitational tournaments like SAZ. I won’t help the team in long run. Because there is a big difference among top 5 teams and the next 5 teams. So what is required in order to improve the game. In past 10 years no player has ever been selected as player of the year. There were only two players who represented India in World Team of the year, Prabhjot Singh in year 2009 and Dilip Tirkey in two years before that. So what should be done to improve standard of the game?
1. Play at-least 10 tournaments every year, which has at-least 1-2 teams who are in top 5 ranking.
2. Like other countries send developmental sides to tournaments where the opponents are under ranked.
3. Send players to play for EHL (European Hockey League), they will improve the game as well as earn some money.
4. Increase the bench strength, bring in more players of junior teams to play senior levels.
5. Conduct national tournaments every year, it will bring out new players.
6. If possible try to start PHL again so that the players play whole year and improve their fitness.
7. Give more importance to coaches than bureaucrats who run the federation.
8. Former players should be invited to work on the skills of new players especially for the players of under-21 and junior teams.
9. The team used to perform very well in Junior World Cup, but when those palyers were introduced in the national side, Their performance was ordinary. Close the gap which comes in between those levels.
10. Another option is to form two teams,i.e. Team A and Team B for small and invitational tournaments. More players will help in forming a good team for big events like Champions Trophy, World Cup and Olympics.
11. Improve the fitness levels to compete against top teams.
These points should help and improve the performance of the teams.
It is necessary that the team plays against top teams. This will help improve the game and will find a path to win.
Victory belongs to the most persevering.
Recession in now over so PHL can be started again. But when will administrators think about it?
agree with u .but our great hockey adiministrator's wisdom should work and these things come in their mind.i wonder..why this ordinary things coming in their mind
Agree with you buddy.. they need to do all this otherwise results would not be sustainable.