Indian men’s hockey chief coach Craig Fulton on Friday said that the same team will play in this year’s FIH World Cup and Asian Games, dismissing suggestions that two different squads will represent the country due to the close proximity of the two important events. He insisted that he will have one squad and the selections will “base around that”. As the World Cup and the Asian Games are just three weeks apart, there was speculation that India is planning to field two different teams to manage player fitness and workload.
While the World Cup will be held in Belgium and the Netherlands from August 15 to 30, the Asian Games, which is an Olympic qualifier, is scheduled to be held in Japan from September 19 till October 4. “No, we are going to have one squad and we are going to base it around that,” Fulton told PTI on the sidelines of the eighth Hockey India Annual Awards here on Friday.
Fullton said it is to some extent unfair for the Asian teams to play both the important tournaments in such close proximity but insisted that India have already put in place plans to manage both the events.
“It is difficult because the Asian teams that play the World Cup have also to play the Asian Games. It’s a tough ask because if you say that to any of the European teams you play the World Cup and few weeks later you play the European Championships and that’s the qualifier for Los Angeles Olympics, they would say no ways we are not playing but it’s just our situation.
“That’s why 14-15 months ago we started the India A team and we have been building depth in our squad so that we can cover two tournaments. So it’s all part of our plan,” the chief coach, who guided India to back-to-back Olympic bronze medals, said.
The South African said what is the need of the hour is to strike a balance and India had already started their transition plans after the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“The cycle works around Olympics, World Cup and Asian Games in priority, so it’s really important. The Asian Games is also important so you don’t just win the World Cup if you don’t qualify (for Olympics) and just focus on the Asian Games, so it’s a fine margin between the two.
“Every tournament we go to we try to win it. But now we have some work to do because we are ranked 8th in the world. We know the FIH Pro League hasn’t gone well for us but we judge ourselves after the World Cup, Asian Games, Olympics, ACT,” Fulton said.
“Other tournaments sometimes we use for development, it’s not about performance. If you look for winning everything, you never develop. If some key players get injured in your team who is going to replace them so it’s a balancing act.” He admitted that the the Rourkela and Hobart legs of the FIH Pro League were disappointing for India, but said it was part of the plan to test new players.
“We had Azlan Shah, we had South Africa, we had HIL and now the players had to play back-to-back eight games so the guys are tired but it’s not an excuse. And at the same time we are building depth in our squad.
“We had one squad for Rourkela and one squad for Hobart and now we have nine weeks together to build the team back and get fresh and ready again,” Fulton said.
“We are ready (for transition). We have five new players from Paris till now and then we have got a lot of young players joining the squad. It’s always fluid.” Fulton expects to start afresh in the London leg of the Pro League after an extensive training camp.
“It’s really exciting. Now the World Cup pools have been done, we now know our opposition in the World Cup and we have got a nine week block of training together, we haven’t had a long block of training together because of some competitions or something going on.
“So it’s nice to build into the Pro League now in June and then finalise our squad for the World Cup and the Asian Games and we have eight games for warm-up for that tournament,” he said.
India and arch-rivals Pakistan are clubbed in the same pool in the upcoming World Cup. Other teams in Pool D are England and Wales.
But Fulton looked in no mood to give too much importance to the much-hyped contest against Pakistan.
“Our attention is on what we are doing because we respect all our opposition but then when you play Pakistan it’s a different attention,” he said.
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