‘The sudden and somewhat unexpected retirement of a bitter and resentful Thobia Singh, immediately after the return of the Indian contingent from the Eleventh Asian Games in Beijing, once again brings into the limelight the cracks and fissures that abound in the fragile edifice of contemporary Indian hockey.

Thoiba, considered the speediest left winger in the country, has decided to call it a day because he felt he had deserved the captaincy of the Indian squad, and it was not given to him despite his seniority. ‘The winger, who is professionally an assistant manager with the Food Corporation of India (FIC), has laid the blame for the Indians’ inability to win the Asiad hockey gold squarely at the doors of the coaches.

The blame has been apportioned for several wrong moves for playing captain Pargat Singh in the final in the final despite the fact that the fullback had a groin injury, for making improper use of Ramprakash Singh and himself, for not building up the confidence of reserves like Harinder Singh by playing them in the easy matches against the minnows of the league, and for praising Jagbir Singh for turning in an excellent performance when all the center forward had done was indulging in selfish play.

There is little doubt that the 25yrold Thobia, a veteran of 163 internationals, still has a couple of years of top class hockey left in him. He as good as admits this when he says that he would continue to be available to the Indian Hockey Federation if he were appointed captain of the side.

A dispassionate follower of Indian hockey would conclude that there are some merits and some weaknesses in Thoiba’s arguments. For one thing, he would have been a failure as captain for the simple reason that he inspires more affection in his teammates than respect! They like him, but they do not consider him a mental giant, or a leader to follow, as they do the current skipper, Pargat Singh.

It is also a fact that the pencil slim Jagbir, while one of the speediest forwards in the world today, has got an exaggerated sense of his own importance after ending as the top goal scorer in the seven nation BMW Trophy tournament in Amstelveen, Holland, in June this year. Like Zafar Iqbal before him, the highly individualistic Jagbir tends to hold on to the ball for far too long, and prefers to take a smack at the goal himself rather than pass the ball to a colleague in the interests of the team.

It is also a fact that Pargat should not have played in the final when he was clearly a step slower than his normal speed. He is a glutton for hard work in normal circumstances, but the groin injury, sustained in the match against Japan earlier, hampered him, He simply could not come back quickly enough to the assistance of the deep defenders when they needed him most, It put extra pressure on Jagdev Singh and on the admirable goalie Mark Patterson, who had until the last game against Pakistan, not conceded a goal in the tournament.

Pakistan were much more sensible in this respect. When their own skipper, Qazi MohibUr Rehman, was also injured before the final, they benched him, and preferred to repose, their trust in rookie Rana Mujahid, who had only two internationals behind him. Mujahid, however, rose brilliantly to the occasion, and put up an outstanding performance in the defence.

However, Thobia’s barb at the coaches for improper use of his own and Ramprakash Singh’s talents is ill directed. One of Thoiba’s major faults, despite outstanding stick skills, has been that he sticks like glue to the wing assigned to him.

He has always been given to galloping like a well-disciplined horse along the sideline of the ground, before sending a center to a teammate positioned in the striking circle, Never once has he tried to learn the trick of making a beeline for goal in the manner freely used by celebrated wingers Sean Kerly of England, Pakistan’s Waseem Feroze, Australian Mark Hager and West German Thomas Reck, to name just four.

Considering the tight man-to-man marking style that the Europeans have adopted, the orthodox sticking to the flank made the opponent’s task of policing Thoiba absurdly easy. If the Indian somehow managed to shake off his shadow, the latter had only to rush back to the striking circle to intercept the predictable center, and then fan out towards the left flank where Thoiba would be trying to locate a colleague to center to!

Sad to say, one rarely saw a concerted five man Indian attacking squad within the rival “D” during the final match against Pakistan at Beijing. At a time when Dhanraj Pillay would have dribbled his way past two or three defenders, have his path to goal blocked, but be well placed to switch the ball to the other side of the circle, there would be no other Indian forward at hand to take over. The move would go begging.

Again, when Jagbir would cut a swathe through the rival defence, and the goalkeeper would rush out of his charge to challenge him, there was no backup help. All that was needed was to switch the ball to an unmarked colleague with the custodian’s fangs drawn

Article extracted from this publication >> November 16, 1990