Thaindian News

By Anand Philar
Eighth World Cup - Sydney, Australia (Nov 23-Dec 4, 1994)

As in the past, India’s preparations for the World Cup in Australia were marred by politics of the worst kind, but the team under new coach Cedric D’Souza lifted itself out of the morass to finish a creditable fifth while missing the semi-final berth by a whisker.

To begin with, Ashish Ballal, the country’s No.1 goalkeeper, was humiliated in a manner that was a throwback to an era when hockey players were treated like common labour. Ballal was invited to the trials in Chennai and was subsequently dropped. He left the city in tears and drove through the night back to his hometown Bangalore.

K.P.S. Gill and K.Jothikumaran had taken charge of the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) a few months earlier, virtually at gunpoint in Bhopal where elections were held. Ballal was dumped for Aloysius Edwards in controversial circumstances.

Thus, the team, whose coach Zafar Iqbal quit in a huff following the Hiroshima Asian Games, landed in drought-ridden Sydney in not the best of mental health.

Worse was to follow midway through the tournament when Sabu Varkey went down with a mysterious ailment and had to be quarantined. Yet, with Cedric introducing a variation of Balkishen Singh’s “total hockey”, the Indians were eye-catching in their approach with emphasis on ball holding and rotation.

“Hockey matches these days are won and lost in the midfield,” was Cedric’s defence of his tactics that were alien to the traditionalists who repeatedly questioned his theories.

“But our objective was to finish in the top six and qualify for the Champions Trophy. To this end, it was a successful World Cup for us,” Cedric declared then.

Defeats to Germany (2-1) and the Netherlands (4-2) in the league saw India finishing third in the pool with victories against Korea (2-0) and Belgium (4-2) and a 2-2 draw with South Africa contributing to their points tally of five.

India went on to beat Argentina and England to finish fifth, matching their 1982 World Cup ranking.

The World Cup would also be remembered for the mesmeric display of Shahbaz Ahmed who played the final against the Dutch nursing a hamstring injury to lead his team to their fourth Cup triumph. It was also a tournament that first saw the drag-flick that Dutch specialist Taco van den Honert executed with Swiss precision. He emerged the top scorer of the tournament with a tally of 11 goals.

Indian Team

Goalkeepers: A.B.Subbaiah, Aloysius Edwards. Full-backs: Anil Aldrin, Rajnish Mishra, K K Poonacha. Half-backs: Mohd Riaz, Harpreet Singh, Jude Felix (captain), Shakeel Ahmed, Sandeep Somesh. Forwards: Mukesh Kumar, Dhanraj Pillay, Sanjeev Kumar, Sabu Varkey, Edward Aranha, Gavin Ferreira. Coach: Cedric D’Souza.

How they finished

1. Pakistan; 2. Holland; 3. Australia; 4. Germany; 5. India; 6. England; 7. Argentina; 8. South Korea; 9. Spain; 10. South Africa; 11. Belgium; 12. Belarus.