At Asia Cup, India looks to start the rebuild
'The strikers are working separately and practicing their finishing. The defenders are working on their communication to be more rigid in defence,' said vice-captain Navneet Kaur.
On any other occasion, this may seem natural. But as the Indian team dissected and analysed the disastrous 2024-25 FIH Pro League season, which saw them get relegated after finishing last, it found that these were the two main shortcomings.
In their 16 matches, the Indians won two games, drew three and lost 11. In that run, they scored only 22 goals, made the least number of circle penetrations (210) among the nine teams, and conceded 52 penalty corners. These are alarming numbers. But they are statistics indicative of a team going through a period of transition.
They do not, however, have much time to settle in, as the team gets set to compete at the Asia Cup in September, where a spot at the 2026 World Cup is on offer.
Since their impressive, and unexpected, run to a fourth-place finish at the delayed Tokyo Olympics in 2021, the Indians had consistently punched above their weight. And the results followed, they finished third in the 2021-22 Pro League season and won the 2022 FIH Nations Cup.
'That was a phase when we were winning and there was a high level of confidence in the team,' Kaur said. 'Now there have been changes in the team and we lost a few matches. We have to start rebuilding that confidence as well.'
A number of important senior players like, but not limited to, Rani Rampal, Vandana Katariya, Deep Grace Ekka, and Gurjit Kaur, are no longer in the squad. And the new crop of players that have come in that are yet to find their feet.
'The seniors knew what to do but the new players don't know much about how to play in pressure situations and how to handle the pressure,' said Salima Tete, the team captain.
Tete is among eight players, from the 39 probables, to have earned over a hundred caps for the national team. At 23-years-old, she is the youngest of those experienced players.
While the team has been working on ironing out the flaws ahead of the trip to Hangzhou, China for the Asia Cup, Tete asserted that a stronger mentality is required.
'If you are mentally weak, the other teams have already beaten you,' she said. 'Whatever has happened has happened. I want to now focus on myself, my strengths. If I work on myself, the others will also follow. I can keep saying that 'we should win,' but it should also come from the other players. Each one of us has to question what we did wrong and work to get back to the level we once were.'
Also key to rising back up the ladder is getting the new generation of players to gel with each other.
'For the Tokyo Olympics, the players had been training together for a few years, but only a few are still there from that batch,' Kaur added.
'It has been difficult because there are a lot of new players. It is difficult to motivate them (because of the bad results). We need them to perform well in the next matches. They are understanding that they should learn from the previous matches and work on it for the next one.'
There is less than a month to go for the next match, as India begins its Asia Cup campaign on September 5 against Thailand. And already the mood in the camp is much different than what it was on June 23, after their 2-3 defeat against China in their last Pro League match of the season.
'We went back to our rooms and everyone had sad looks on their faces. We were questioning, why are we conceding, why are we not scoring…' Tete recalled. 'But now we have to take those learnings and forget everything else because the next goal is the Asia Cup. Right now the mood is back up because we are looking at the next target. That's the only thing on our mind.'
The team had taken a few steps back, even failing to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics. But now they are hoping to take a few meaningful strides in the right direction.
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