Indian men's hockey team remained on the top of the points table of the FIH Pro League after finishing the Europe leg of the tournament with a win 2-1 win against Argentina.
The first assignment of new coach Craig Fulton started with a loss against Belgium but the Indian team recovered well to finish the tourney with four wins (including one shootout win against GB) and four losses.
The overall emotion from the first assignment will be satisfactory given three opponents were ranked higher (Netherlands, Belgium, and Great Britain) and the away conditions.
While Craig Fulton laid out what are his expectations from the team beforehand, a lot of work needs to be done with the existing set of players after watching these eight games.
Here is a breakdown of the first assignment of the Craig Fulton era:
Defense needs a lot of work
A common theme across anything you read of Indian hockey in the past month is how Craig Fulton is clear that he wants his team to defend to win. Although the team conceded 19 goals and kept just one clean sheet, the signs of work done to bring defensive stability was visible.
The best example of defensive solidity was the game where the Indian team thrashed a full-strength Belgium 5-1 maintaining solid defensively and then transitioning beautifully on the counter to score goals.
Craig Fulton needs to work on the structure of defense when India faces attacking hockey as displayed by Great Britain and the Netherlands banging 15 goals in just four games against India.
Time for Old Guard to go?
As many as eight Indian players from the World Cup squad were dropped in the mini-tournament of FIH Pro League in Rourkela where the Indian team looked a different beast defeating the likes of Australia and Germany.
But Craig Fulton trusted the old guard more in the European leg rather than the youngsters such as Karthi Selvam and returning Simranjeet Singh.
It will be no exaggeration to say that the likes of Lalit Upadhyay, Akashdeep Singh, and Mandeep Singh had a horrible outing in Europe making multiple mistakes which often resulted in goals.
On the contrary, the young attacking line-up of Abhishek, Karthi, Gurjant, and Sukhjeet was effective in the press and created some beautiful transitions while counter-attacking.
With the four nations tournament cup up before Asian Champions Trophy, Craig Fulton might move to his young attacking line-up completely.
Players in new roles continue to shine
Former Indian captain and one of the most seasoned hockey players Manpreet Singh has been seen dictating beautiful passes from midfield in the past but post world cup, he has been positioning himself as the last man in Indian defense and pinging beautiful balls from defense to start the attack.
The switch from midfield to defense has not been an easy one but Manpreet has asserted confidence in his performance in the past eight games.
While Manpreet struggled in one-on-one situations against attackers, he made it up with his positioning and passes to start the counter-attack which will be the driving force behind the Craig Fulton style of play.
Another name that thrived in front of the coach is Vivek Sagar Prasad. The youngster was extremely reliable in carrying out the ball and on the turnovers. His combination with Abhishek was deadly on the counter-attacks.
The lack of a PC Specialist
One of the most probing questions of Indian hockey is who is the deputy of Harmanpreet Singh in penalty corners?
Honestly, there was no answer this time either. In the last two games of the leg where Harmanpreet Singh was rested, India failed to convert any Penalty corner.
Amit Rohidas and Jarmanpreet Singh tried but there was no satisfactory result to note.
With the likes of Mandeep Mor and Jugraj Singh in the ranks, Craig Fulton would want to find an answer to this question.
India will travel to Spain in July to play in a friendly tournament against the hosts and the Netherlands. They will be back again home to feature in the Asian Champions Trophy before moving to China for the all-important Asian Games.
