The defeat was unanimously described as 'shameful', which would perhaps erroneously lead some to believe that the Indian hockey team that played in the qualifying rounds in Chile was capable of winning. The 'shameful' chapter had indeed begun a few days prior to the final surrender before Britain when the same country had handed a drubbing to the Indian team. The fact is that the Indian team that participated in the Olympic qualifying round matches was ranked lower than Great Britain.

There was no dearth of head-hunters in India after the decisive defeat in Chile. The media was at its carping best and the hockey fans were dumbfounded. The politicians joined the two in demanding heads-of the bosses of the long discredited Indian Hockey Federation, particularly its chief, aged 'super cop' K.P.S. Gill. The latter arrogantly refused to step down, saying "IHF is not a coffee machine that could pour out instant coffee!"

While there were accounts analysing the weaknesses of the team that played the final round in Chile, the overriding theme in the criticism was that Gill must go at once for the sake of resurrection of the Indian hockey. The demand for his removal has been a constant refrain almost from the time he became the chief of the IHF in 1994.

One does not know why, but the fact is that 14 years have passed and nobody has been able to dislodge Gill if that was considered to be the first step towards restoring India's lost hockey pride. There can be no question that Gill has outlived the IHF hospitality. But in demanding his scalp certain other facts are sometimes overlooked.

Granted that much of the muddle in the Indian hockey team can be traced to the IHF and its chief. But when talking about the decline of hockey it may also be necessary to talk about the clear downward trajectory of Indian hockey from about the mid-1960s and the corresponding ascendancy of the European style of hockey, which has contributed in no mean manner to the decline of Indian hockey.

The world switched from grass to astro-turf for playing hockey long time ago. The debacle of the Indian team at the Montreal Olympics in 1976 was attributed to the team's lack of practice on the astro-turf. More than 30 years on, the country is still short of astro-turfs grounds. Big cities like Delhi and Mumbai may claim one or two astro-turfs but in smaller towns where probably there is still an abundance of hockey the game continues to be played on grass. In fact, most schools do not have adequate playgrounds.

India was a force to reckon with in hockey for a long time, from the time the men led by legendary Dhyan Chand pulverised the world in the decades after the first world war. India bagged gold medals in eight Olympic Games. The last one was at Moscow where the quality of participation was questionable because of boycott by the western countries upset over Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

In the last quarter century the performance of the Indian hockey team has been almost consistently disappointing. The World Cup victory in 1975 and the Asian Games gold medal in 1998 brought some cheer. But the more notable feature has been a failure to qualify for the semi-finals at eight successive World Cup matches. A new low was reached when for the first time India failed to take any hockey medal at the Doha Asian Games in 2006. The Indian team's weakness in conceding goals at the last minute and its repeated failure to convert penalty corners has become a big problem.

It can be no body's case that hockey talent has dried up in India. The talent has to be brought out and nurtured and chiselled into skilful players. That does not seem to happen because first of all there are always question marks over the selection of the team, with allegations of nepotism, cronyism and even corruption flying around. Even a really talented team will have to work over time to take its performance to international level. The Indian players have often been found lacking in speed, stamina and strategy to outwit the opposition.

The skills of the players can be honed by the coach. The history of the Indian hockey team's coach is akin to a revolving door policy. The coaches have been coming and going at frequent intervals. A defeat in a major international tournament is a sure signal for their hasty exit. The coach of the team that has just lost in Chile, Joachim Carvalho, did not complete even a year before he resigned following the Chile defeat.

The International Hockey Federation, reportedly concerned over the decline of men's hockey in India, had appointed Australian Richard Charlesworth, a four time Olympian, as the India team's technical director. He was not with the Indian team in Chile. According to the grapevine Carvalho did not want him around.

It is believed that the Indian hockey bosses are not keen on foreign coaches. In 2004, a German coach, Gerhard Rach, was sacked after one of the regulation Indian defeats. His parting shot against the Indian hockey bosses: 'It (Indian Hockey Association) is an association run by mad people.'

It is not very difficult to make the players and the coach the scapegoat after a defeat. That will prove to be futile if the hockey bosses continue to be immune from accountability of any sort. There are guidelines for the tenure of the sport bosses. But these guidelines have been held in 'abeyance' for the last five years. Why?

The government may not be in a position to directly intervene in the administration of an autonomous body like the IHF but it does not make sense that there is absolutely no way to get rid of the hockey bosses when their record has all along been dismal and disappointing. The bus to Beijing Olympic has been missed but there is still time to prepare for boarding the bus for a host of other important tournaments in coming years-the Asian Cup, the Commonwealth games, the World Cup.

Krishna Mohan