India Are A Dangerous Side: Colin Batch
The Indian men’s hockey team have clearly emerged as one of the international hockey powerhouse – back-to-back Olympic bronze medals have enhanced India’s reputation as one of the world top men hockey sides. This indicates the steady but significant strides made by the national team since their wooden spoon finish at the 2012 London Olympics – they did not qualify for the Olympics for the first time ever for the Beijing edition in 2008.
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The Indian team is talked about in the same league such as the likes of the Netherlands, Germany, Australia, and Belgium. “India are a dangerous side. We played against India in a five Test series this year and I could see that they were experimenting trying our combinations in that series. We won every game but lost the important one at the Paris Olympics,” says former Australian men’s team coach Colin Batch.
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The former Kookaburras attacking midfielder understands why there is so much at stake for the Indian men’s hockey team. “India are very demanding on their sporting teams, especially hockey much like Australia. The expectation is to win all the time, but the reality is you have to find the right combinations. You have 18 players in a team and for the Olympics, you only have 16. India have a nice talent pool – I know there’s some good Indian players that missed out on the Paris Olympics, but they are a very strong team at the moment,” he says.
Batch, who stepped down as Kookaburras coach after the Paris Olympics after an eight-year stint, believes Indian team is fast closing the gap with the likes of Netherlands, Germany, Australia, and Belgium. “Maybe the consistency is not quite there but then you can argue that the Indian team was consistent at the 2024 Paris Olympics. The kind of preparation Craig Fulton and the coaching staff put in showed in the Olympics. They looked better prepared and of course, you need a little bit of luck along the way. The way they defended minus one player in the quarterfinal against Great Britain was completely out of the box,” he lavishes praise on the Blueshirts.
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India perhaps played their best brand of hockey in the semifinal against Germany which they lost 2-3. “India played outstanding hockey but sometimes you play really well and not win. There are occasions when you don’t play so well but you hit a couple of goals and you win the game. So that can happen in hockey.”
Batch also traces memories of India 7-1 drubbing at the hands of Australia in the pool phase of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. “I think everything clicked for us in that game. We had four shots and scored three goals, while India had four shots but they didn’t score. Initially, India threatened a lot until we got well on top. We knew India were capable of coming back but maybe the fifth goal was the killer for them.”
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The ace coach talks about the tenacity of his former Aussie team-mate Graham Reid who was the coach of the Indian team that was inflicted a 1-7 hammering at Tokyo. “It’s never a great feeling for a coach to see his side go down by a big margin. The fact Graham Reid was able to get boys get over the big defeat and subsequently win the bronze medal talks a lot of about his coaching pedigree. One performance shouldn’t define your Olympic campaign,” he makes his point.
