Hockey Features

Tokyo Olympics: The Indian men's hockey team, once unbeatable, is now not a surety for a medal any more although the current contingent raises some hopes of a podium finish after over 40 years.

Balbir Singh's relationship with the sport goes way beyond the goals and the trophies. It was like a timeless love affair, one that he described quite vividly in his autobiography.

India has had a dominating show at the Asian level and would like to reiterate that.

India would be looking towards reinforcing their Asian credentials with another gold medal.

The story of Abdul Samad from Bhopal is an inspirational one as he has overcome many difficulties in his path of playing national hockey for India.

It's a Sunday morning and you're about to start a game of hockey and suddenly a familiar face approaches you and politely asks 'can I get a game?'. You're stumped on a hockey turf because you don't know how to answer that question when a former Indian Hockey Captain is the one asking you that question.

Andy Hayward's goal in the dying minutes denied India a chance to split points with New Zealand in the Azlan Shah hockey tournament.

The new rules will see the traditional two halves of 35 minutes each replaced by four 15-minute quarters, with additional 40-second time-outs before penalty corners and after goals have been scored.

India bounced back well to beat Malaysia 3-2 after losing back-to-back matches to start with and Sardar Singh's men would draw from the new-found self-belief when they come face-to-face against the marauding Australians.

There is a dearth of quality hockey players in India and the present national team possesses a "bunch of mediocre" individuals who are just satisfied to be Olympians, feel yesteryear stars of the game.