Mens hockey world cup 2023

[sameerph]

It ends in a goaless draw. Very rare in hockey I suppose. But, it was an entertaining match despite no goals and draw was a fair result I think.

[rajitghosh]

Assuming England will beat Spain, India needs to beat Wales by a big margin to top the group and reach the quarters directly. Let's hope Spain surprises England.

[srini]

A goalless draw. But oh boy the match had lots of thrilling moments, i followed football worldcup and now hockey, I can vouch hockey is far more thrilling..not sure how football became more popular across world… the same goalless draw would have looked insipid and boring in a football match.

[jayakris]

I guess we do know how to play some defense these days, huh?

[sameerph]

I guess we do know how to play some defense these days, huh?

Yes, defense has been pretty good here. Not conceding a single goal against Spain and England is good.

No PC conversions in 2 matches though and I had read that we brought in a special PC coach for a camp of sort before this WC. Did he improve only PC defense ?

Btw, our best player in these 2 matches has been Hardik Singh and it seems like he was badly injured towards the end of the match as he fell down on knee. If he is out of the tournament, it will be a big blow for us.

[jayakris]

The new stadium at Rourkela looks great!

Watch | Inside the world’s largest hockey stadium (The Hindu)

[srini]

Odisha has singlehandedly brought renaissance to Indian hockey, by sponsoring hockey team after Sahara and building the best stadiums for it in the world. Otherwise we would probably have met the same fate as our bug nation neighbors.

On a separate note, is it just me or does anyone else also think the PC conversion rate not just for Indian team but across all hockey playing nations has drastically come down? Any rule changes or nuances of the game that brought this change? When i tried to find out some posts seem to imply earlier a specific type of sticks were allowed which were longer and more curved that were conducive for drag flacks? The post seemed to imply that such sticks were allowed to be specifically used during corners in 1990s early 2000s.

[Atithee]

This makes me think if every state should adopt a sport and this may allow talent to emerge and take us forward to Olympic medals. Rather than spreading money on all types of sporting and non-sporting activities—read politicians in the garb of administrators—focus on a single sport.

Harayana is already hotbed of wrestling. J&K can adopt winter sports. West Bengal football, Kerala athletics or volleyball, etc.

[jayakris]

^^^ I think I agree. We should just get states to give proposal for big money to focus on specific sports. Pick, say the 5 best state proposals for each sport (it can even be one each from north, west, south central and east reguons). Some base money can go to all states, but big money should be for specific focused development like happened in Odisha in hockey.

Football (for instance) should be focused in Kerala, Goa, Punjab and West Bengal. Tennis can be in TN (or Karnataka), Maharashtra, Delhi, and Tripura (just picking one, as WB/Kolkata has totally dropped their ball). Wrestling is already centered at one place (Haryana) but there needs to be some place down south like say in Hyderabad or Madurai or somewhere.

This can be based on a 5-year allocation for selected proposals, to be put up for new proposal competition after that. An example would be allocation for improving some tennis facilities and holding 2 challengers every year for 5 years (say $2M to build courts and $2 million for events total). There is no reason why a place like Coimbatore or Surat or Bhubaneswar cannot do tennis challengers, and have some good quality tennis courts (minimum 10 courts in a complex). Another example would be building say a 10-field football complex in some place like Malappuram in Kerala or Guwahati in Assam (maybe a $5 million cost for land and $1 million for facilities), for holding a district-team school-level competition (under 14 and under 18) for the whole region. Can you imagine a three-week football mela of district school teams? What a gold-mine to unearth talent!

We need to get creative. The Odisha example for hockey may open some eyes, I hope. One top politician's (Naveen Patnaik) interest in sports was all that was needed.

By the way, I believe Odisha and Naveen Patnaik are now into fostering volleyball also. Thank God! Achyuta Samantha, MP from Kandhamal, Odisha, is the president of the Volleyball Federation and he is into everything!

[Atithee]

Glad you agree, Jay. The issue is that this will cut down the number of administrative freeloaders drastically. That’s why this would be a huge challenge. It can be done. Not sure what blueprint the sports ministry follows to bend the curve of our international medals in Olympics etc. We need both a visionary and an executioner to make this happen. Let’s see who puts their hand up.

P.S. What is Odisha getting out of this? I can’t believe Patnaik is just a ardent hockey lover and plans to gain no political/ financial mileage from this generosity.

[srini]

I said Odisha single handedly did this, but in fact it was just Naveen Patnaik who made hockey development his personal legend (in Paulo Coelho words) and simply because no politician including Modi can oppose his actions in his state due to the untainted image he carries, this was made possible.We just can't expect other states to follow Odisha as there would be lot of opposition on why so much money is spent for just one sport and questions would be raised on possible scams in that.

It also makes me fear for the what-after Naveen Patnaik scenerio of Indian hockey. He is 76 year old and in the worldcup inauguration he looked very frail depending a lot on his aides for everything and was beaming a smile only when he thought camera was focused on him.I just hope Odisha can find another Patnaik who can continue his legacy...some one who can continue his no-nonsense attitude and not fight central government in a brash manner like KCR, Didi and the rest of Indian political clan do and risk deprivation of funds from Centre..you just can't risk pickingup a fight with Centre, coperative fedaralism is a myth in India except in Odisha where NP has the respect and trust from his people. As Jay said if NP has decided to bring in change and contribute for Volleyball as well, then its bound to happen. We all just need to replace national anthem for hockey and volleyball matches with "God save the CM". In yesterday pre-match anthems that's what i was praying in my mind after piddly islanders sang their "God save the King".

[rajitghosh]

Naveen babu has done his bit for other sports also. The Odisha FC ISL team though not owned by the Government receives a lot of support from the Government. For hockey itself they are putting up many astro turfs across Sundargarh district. Sundargarh has produced many international hockey players. Theu now have an Odisha Open badmintion tournament a BWF Super 100 event. They also hosted the under 17 women's football World Cup.
For the uninitiated his father was a decent footballer and an even more daredevil Air Force Officer who landed troops in Srinagar during with 1948 war and helped Indonesian freedom fighters escape from the Dutch. In fact his daredevilry went to the extent where he openly worked for Netaji's INA while fighting the Japanese on behalf of the British in the World War.
Amongst all Chief Ministers in India Naveen Babu probably has the cleanest image. Even though not many talk about it, thanks to its mineral resources Odisha has a lot of large metal industries and some decent sized ports.

[Atithee]

^^For a moment I was confused who is this Naveen Babu. Then I realized, it is a term of endearment. Thank you Naveen Babu ji. His father was Biju, right?

[jayakris]

Yes, Naveen Patnaik is Biju Patnaik's son. The celebrated father that Rajit was talking about, above, was Biju Patnaik. In fact, he followed another celebrated personality before him in Odisha (iirc) - Nandini Satpati, the original iron lady in India before Jayalalitha-amma, Mayavati behen ji, Mamata didi etc made their mark. Odisha has had some impressive CMs. I am now impressed with Naveen Babu too, for sports reasons. He seems to have a clean image as well.

This is all off-topic, but what the hell...

[EDIT: I find that Biju Patnaik had preceded Nandini Satpati by 10 years, back in the early 60s when he was CM for two years. I didn't know that! He came back after a long time for 5 more years in the early 90s! Odisha has had a whole lot of other CMs, some 16 in total, but Naveen Patnaik has now gone almost 23 years at a stretch as a CM, winning 5 elections]

[Rajiv]

^^Thank you Naveen Babu ji. His father was Biju, right?

Yes Biju Patnaik a rare politician who cannot be compared to the present days politicians ,and a stalwart of the JP movement against the Indira Gandhi's Emergency, and Navin Patnaik has the right genes which are on display.

But apart from being a politician his major claim to fame was being an ace aviator, and in his DC-3 secretly ferried in a dare devil act many Indonesian freedom fighters against all odds to Singapore who were up against the Dutch, and was confered a Bhumi Putra award by the Indonesians and these types of Aviation related stories formed a major part of preparation and inspiration for my younger son in his preparation and interviews in his successful induction into Cathay Pacific as a Pilot.