For hockey fans scattered across the world, not neighbours on a map, but bound by a shared hope, India’s eighth-place finish at the World Cup was more than just an unwelcome headline. With a semifinal in sight, history suddenly felt possible, despite the warnings. The confidence was unmistakable as they began the journey, but so was the reality.
Everyone knew reaching the hallowed steps of a World Cup semifinal would require something close to the extraordinary. It was a kind of Haj to the golden memory of 1975, when India last stood at the summit, over half a century ago.
Since then, the world has transformed completely. From a couple of TV channels in 1975, we now navigate infinite scrolls; from cash in hand, we have moved to tap-to-pay and QR codes. Yet, the Indian team has repeatedly come within touching distance, only to fall short. Pakistan and Germany have won four World Cups each, making the prospect of repeating 1975 seem increasingly insurmountable.
“I wonder,” says 1975 World Cup captain Ajit Pal Singh, his slow drawl spanning the 50-year chasm. “Why haven’t we been able to break the jinx?”
“But is it a jinx?” he asks. “Or do we simply lack the tools?”
“I have no idea,” adds the former captain, once considered the best centre-half in the world. He was a player who could kill time, pause it, and control it entirely when the ball was on his stick.
A lesson not learnt
Today, in an era where pace and speed dictate play, modern hockey is frenetic yet strictly controlled. India often seems locked in the extreme left lane, like motorists trundling away while the rest of the world races past.
Maybe we forgot what it meant to fight for every inch. Two consecutive Olympic bronze medals, paired with zero to little regional competition in Asia and only the Pro League as a barometer, created a false sense of security. We didn’t panic when we suffered that heavy 8-0 defeat to Argentina in Rourkela before 20,000 fans in the Pro League in February.
We trundled on, assuming the setback was temporary and that the pieces would naturally fall into place. But once you slip down the pecking order in the Pro League, true competitiveness fades. The edge of the third and fourth quarters — the phase that decides big games — blunts. Once players lose the ability to read the ebb and flow of a high-intensity match, the contest is effectively over.
Amstelveen showed us our rightful spot in world hockey: eighth. We beat only Wales (18th) and Pakistan (12th), while dropping consecutive matches to England (7th), the Netherlands (5th), Argentina (4th), and Belgium (2nd). In none of these matches were we close to establishing sustained momentum or controlling the pace for extended periods.
The match against Belgium was competitive only because of the shoot-out, but classification games are tedious affairs, and Belgium was simply more keen on finishing with a victory in front of home fans who took a third consecutive final appearance for granted.
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Predictable tactics
Some argued the side was too tilted toward experience over youth, but that misreads the core issue. India failed because we couldn’t step up and press the accelerator. There were long periods where we simply slept against England — the most crucial pool-stage match, where a win would have carried vital points and momentum into the second round.
By the time we faced Argentina later, the ghosts of that Rourkela Pro League thrashing were dancing on the pitch. We lost the World Cup on the turf, but more importantly, in the mind. We behaved and played exactly like our ranking, while everyone else played to theirs.
“Fifty years since our 1975 World Cup triumph, this group has a chance to write its own chapter in Indian hockey history, and we are really excited about it,” said Craig Fulton before the tournament.
Optimism is not a weapon you carry into a World Cup. What you carry is the unexpected: the surprise element, a tactical shift that astounds the opposition, a period of play that stuns both the opposing team and the coaching staff. Much of that battle happens silently in the dugout — micro-adjustments like a chess game, bewildering to the casual fan but entirely dictating the turn of play in the third and fourth quarters. The one word that should have described our hockey was disruptive. Instead, for the most part, we were entirely predictable.
Where do we go from now?
The next World Cup is in 2030, with whispers pointing toward Perth, Australia. But whoever hosts doesn’t change India’s World Cup drought narrative. We have hosted the tournament four times since 1975—Bombay in 1982 (5th), Delhi in 2010 (8th), Bhubaneswar in 2018 (6th), and Bhubaneswar-Rourkela in 2023 (9th). The recurring failures cannot be blamed solely on the quality of a single squad. Going without a title for half a century points to deeper, systemic roots.
At this moment, Indian hockey feels like a stale action flick that just bombed at the box office.
Sundeep Mishra is an author and the editor of Athletics India. Views are personal.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)