Eight months ago, it came as a surprise when Harendra Singh wasn't appointed coach of the Indian senior men's hockey team after the sacking of Dutchman Roelant Oltmans. That job eventually went to Oltmans' compatriot Sjoerd Marijne, who had been coach of the Indian women's team. Harendra, who led the Indian side to victory in the Junior World Cup in December 2016, was instead named coach of the Indian women's team.
On Tuesday, following a review of India's disappointing performance at the Commonwealth Games, (both the men and women's team finished outside the podium) Hockey India swapped the coaches once more with Marijne returning to the women's team and Harendra named new coach of the men's team.
Here are the answers to some of the main questions about that decision:
Was it an unexpected choice?
There is a reason Harendra was considered a frontrunner for the men's team coach position in 2017. "This was a decision I felt Hockey India should have made eight months ago. I don't think there is another coach as qualified as him in India. He's improved by leaps and bounds," says former India captain Viren Rasquinha, adding, "No one understands Indian hockey better than Harendra. He was the assistant coach of the team when I made my junior team debut in 1998. Since then he has been with the seniors, juniors and been part of the camps, so he knows each of these players inside out and has seen all of them since they were kids," he says.
According to Hockey India high performance director David John, while Harendra had been considered for the post, it was Marijne's prior experience as the assistant coach of the 2008 Olympic silver-winning Spain team that tipped the balance in his favour.
What led to the change?
The swap was a consequence of the men's team's dismal performance at the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia. While India finished on top of their table, their performance wasn't convincing - a 2-2 draw against Pakistan, followed by laboured 4-3 and 2-1 wins over lower-ranked Wales and Malaysia, respectively. Two goals in the final couple of minutes secured a win against England, followed by consecutive losses against New Zealand and England. "We didn't have a single good performance at the Commonwealth Games. I can understand one bad performance. Sometimes teams start slowly and then improve. But our performance deteriorated," says John.
By his estimate, India had only a 10 percent conversion rate of shots on goal, in contrast to the winning sides' 26 percent. Marijne's player-centric approach was apparently found wanting. The Dutchman had preferred letting players take individual responsibility for their actions with overall strategy taken by a leadership group of five or six senior players in the team. The approach wasn't wrong by itself. "This is something most international teams will do. But it didn't work for us. Ours was a very young squad with nine players coming from the juniors. Perhaps our group was too immature. There were several mixed messages going out to the players. We had a communication breakdown," says John.
What changes could Harendra bring?
John feels the communication breakdown between what the coach wanted and what the players did on the field has been a common feature of foreign coaches. "It's often difficult for a foreign coach to understand what was going on. We think this will not be the case with Harendra. We need a disciplined approach with one clear message on the field," says John. Rasquinha agrees. "We were very disjointed at the Commonwealth Games. Players were doing their own thing. You can be individual players but you need team responsibility. When things are not going your way, you need the coach to step in forcefully. Harendra won't let the team drift. He won't let players simply be passengers on the field," says Rasquinha.
Marijne typically had a conservative approach to coaching, preferring to play defensively and leave most of the attacking to one or two of the forwards. On the other hand, the Indian women's team under Harendra seemed to have taken to heart his philosophy of being more adventurous. "I told them that I would bear responsibility for all the consequences, but that they need to start taking risks, in order to play a more aggressive and attacking brand of hockey. Whenever we have played aggressive hockey, whether our men or women, we have produced good results," Harendra told ESPN earlier this year.
Who could benefit from Harendra?
Harendra's approach could directly benefit the nine senior team players who were part of his Junior World Cup-winning side, such as Dilpreet Singh and Vivek Prasad, the two 18-year-old players who were part of India's squad at Gold Coast. Rasquinha believes such youngsters might not always have known what to make of the personal responsibility Marijne entrusted them with. "Young players are yet to be fully mature and didn't seem to know the roles entrusted to them. Harendra understands that well," says Rasquinha.
Does Harendra have enough time to make a difference?
The Indian team's next big tournament is the Champions Trophy in June, which, John feels, gives Harendra more than enough time to have an impact. "There is not much difference between the top 10 teams in men's hockey. We don't have a problem with our players' skills. They are technically sound but we need them to be united on the pitch," he says.
According to John, the team could not have waited until after the Champions Trophy to appoint Harendra, for that would have left him just a couple of months to get the side ready for the Asian Games, which India will have to win to directly qualify for the 2020 Olympics. "The easy decision would have been to allow them to continue and hope for the best but we had to make a hard decision. We cant afford to have them not perform at the Asian Games," he says.