India failed to reach the quarter finals of the 2023 world cup. This was a setback compared to the 2018 tournament, where they reached the last eight. The team eventually finished 9th.
This is very much in line with the Indian men’s hockey teams’ performance in world cups from 1998 to 2014.
This hurts more as the team had placed third at the 2020 Olympics and had home advantage as hosts. I won’t delve into the technical reasons for the loss which have been brilliantly analysed by ESPN’s Anish Anand here: https://www.espn.in/field-hockey/story/_/id/35510038/hockey-world-cup-went-wrong-india.
The under-perfomance boiled down to (as analysed by Anish) a) Harmanpreet Singh’s failing to show up at the big stage b) Injury to star Hardik Singh c) Failure to take control of games d) Experienced players and forwards underperforming e) An inspired opposition.
However, what really stood out is coach Graham Reid’s statement after the loss against New Zealand: “Following this, we will try to work out how to get a mental coach involved. I think that is an important part of our future”.
I think mental conditioning has been a vital component of professional sports for a while now. In fact, there are sportstech companies out there which can assist the team psychologist and mental coach. The aim being to improve a player’s ability to handle pressure.
Two names come to mind immediately – NeuroTracker and Graffos – both of whom I wrote about recently in an article (Elite Sports to Mainstream: How Sportstech companies are expanding their reach).
I am not aware of the coaching aids and tools utilised by the current team. However, the men’s team management need look no further than the Indian Women’s Hockey team who utilised NeuroTracker to enhance mental resilience in 2018.