Beating Australia, European teams will be our target now: Sardar Singh

CHANDIGARH: After the high of winning gold at the Asian Games in Incheon, Indian hockey has once again started to look upwards. Team captain Sardar Singh is one of the integral members of the renaissance. In an exclusive interview to TOI, Sardar spoke about the different aspects on which the Indian team needs to work upon, and how it is essential to start winning on a consistent basis.
Excerpts...
How important is the Asian Games gold for the Indian team?
First I must say that the credit goes to the whole team, which also includes the coaching staff. We put in a lot of hard work for 8 to 10 months and our target was to win the Asian Games Gold and directly qualify for the Rio Olympics.The Olympic qualifiers are very tough.We faced it the last time and didn't want to go through the same. That's why winning the gold was really important for us and the team can now breathe easy in the upcoming tournaments.
At the Asian Games the Indian team faced competition from Pakistan, South Korea and Malaysia. All these teams are more or less at the same level. But at the Olympics the competition is tougher.There are the European teams as well as Australia. How can the Indian team raise their standard and compete at their level?
The Indian team, right now, has many youngsters in it and we are growing with every passing tournament. The pair of (Roelant) Oltmans and Terry Walsh have put in strategies, which are innovative and at par with the European and Australian teams. Our fitness levels have improved manifold. Oltmans-Walsh have chalked out a two-year schedule. The Indian team will now play most of their matches against Netherlands, Germany , Spain, Australia, Belgium, England in the run up to the Olympics.
According to you, which are those areas where the Indian team requires major improvement?
I feel if you train hard and give your hundred percent during training sessions, then you can perform well in match situations too. There are some grey areas in our game, which requires some improvement. Mainly two versus one tackle, defending penalty corners, conversion of penalty corners and ball rotation. One thing I have noticed is that the current bunch of players are willing to learn and they are improving upon their negative areas very quickly .
The more they play against good teams at an international level the better they'll become.
At the Asiad the new rules were implemented for the first time. Now matches are being played in four quarters of 15 minutes each. How has the Indian team benefited with the new rule change?
This has been a boon for us. Our players can take adequate rest and plan after every 15 minutes, according to the match situation. Then the 10-minute break after the second quarter is also beneficial for us. We can play fast hockey and our players remain fresh all the time. Whatever we lacked on the fitness part in comparison with the European teams has been somewhat evened out.
In the last 10-15 years the Indian team used to concede goals in the last 10 minutes of the match, which always proved detrimental for our chances. We saw a huge improvement in that area during the Asian Games.
Yes. Even in the 2014 World Cup we were plagued by this problem. In the matches against Belgium and England we were on the winning side but conceded unnecessary goals in the final few moments and lost important points. After that we learnt our lessons and the whole team worked really hard on holding the ball. What's important in those final few minutes is having proper communication between players and we drastically improved on that aspect of our game during the Commonwealth Games and the Asiad.
Has the Indian team set any particular target for the Rio Olympics?
Well, the Olympics will be held two years from now. What we are thinking at present is to train hard and grow as a team. The current bunch of players are gelling really well and that's really important. It is essential to have a good team spirit. Frankly speaking, we want to start defeating big teams like Australia, Germany , Netherlands, Spain and Belgium on a consistent basis and that is our target now.