Through out the history we have had champions , few nations have dominated a particular field of sports like none other can. Brazil does it to Soccer , West Indies for a decade in 80's fir Cricket , Australia doing it now , Russia did in Chess and so on .
India also did it , and it did it in fashion , dominating HOCKEY for nearly a century, more than five generations have seen Indian prosper and dictate terms and techniques. all nations have tried hard to dismantle the mattle of Indian hockey. When it did not work out , came in concept of synthetic grounds. Also the generation of aggressive hockey was going down. The then less popular sport Cricket saw Indians winning World Cup in 83 and coupled with mini WC 85 Saw Cricket demanding attention. This entire stuff came in packaged with indiviual performance and likes of Kapil Dev and Gavaskar. The icons in young guns of India bagan to popularize the game. The domestic events like ranji , deodhar and other championship popularised cricket to hilt. Hockey was a premium sports , and lasted only couple of hours , cricket came packaged for a day's fun.
But the interest in hockey was lost when the standard of game was down. The day when india got down from numbero uno position in Hockey was assumed to be short termed , but it has been 25 years India won a medal in hockey , and more than decade when india won WC in hockey.If one cant associate PRIDE in the game , interst lose.
Indian hockey was revived with Premier hockey league , but players who performed there never made it to top. The heads in hockey can talk all junk , but not about game.
This time hockey will be played , India wont be there in Olympics , its so sad .
but we cant blame cricket for hockey disaster.
