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.
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.
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.