The tenure of Roelant Oltmans, the coach of the Indian hockey team, came to an end on Saturday following a decision made in the three-day meeting of a 24-member Hockey India High Performance and Development Committee. While the 63-year-old's sacking seems sudden, there had been an air of uncertainty over his term following a run of disappointing results recently - in particular a sixth-place finish at the Hockey World League semifinals in London. India won just four matches in that tournament, beating an ordinary Pakistan twice along with wins against lower-ranked Canada and Scotland. India also suffered six losses, including matches against minnows Malaysia and Canada.
Oltmans said the decision didn't come as a surprise and that he 'had no regrets'.
"We all (foreigners) know India is not the easiest of countries to work -- especially in the sporting sector. But in my mind, I was always prepared. When I took up the offer, I knew someday I will be sacked, but I was ready for that," Oltmans told PTI.
The three-day meeting began on Thursday and was supposed to serve as a review of the Indian Hockey team's recent performances and aimed to plan the roadmap ahead. Oltmans had made a presentation on Thursday about the way forward for the Indian team in front of Hockey India (HI) officials and HI high performance director David John. The proposal wasn't accepted, and incidentally, David John will serve as the interim chief coach until a replacement is named.
"We are collectively not satisfied with the Indian Men's Hockey team's performance in 2016 and 2017 and feels (sic) that wins in Asia can't be a benchmark for success any more. We need to show results beyond intent in key international tournaments where the sporadic success over the last two years is more incidental than deliberate," said Harbinder Singh, the chairman of the committee.
Despite the strong statement made for his ouster, Oltmans has reason to feel hard done by. Although he had served as the high performance director of Hockey India since 2013, he had taken charge of the men's team following the ouster of Paul Van Ass, who had been in charge for six months.
"I don't think it was the right moment to take this decision. We had always set our target for 2017 Asia Cup and winning the Hockey World League Finals," Oltmans told PTI after his ouster.
Oltmans had recorded two podium finishes --- bronze at the World League final in 2015 and and silver at the Champions Trophy in June 2016. The quarterfinal exit at the Rio Olympics was a marked improvement from the bottom-place finish at the 2012 edition.
Only a year back, HI had reposed full faith in him as they extended his contract till the 2020 Olympics. Oltmans' contract was originally supposed to expire in January 2017. "We want to carry on with him," Narinder Batra, the then HI chief had said. Had Oltmans seen out the contract he would have been the longest serving foreign coach of the Indian hockey team. However, with Batra taking the top job in the international hockey federation, Oltmans appears to have fallen out of favour with the new administration.
Further in his defence, Oltmans can claim - as he did in an interview with DNA on Thursday - that the recent poor results were an outcome of including fresh faces in the Indian team. With the 2020 games in mind, Oltmans had drafted 11 juniors from the Junior World Cup winning team into the 33-member probables for the new Olympic cycle.
"My plan from day one was to set long-term goals to put the house in order and achieve consistency. I had always said that India need six years to be in the top 3. But it seems it's different in India. People want overnight results. But it takes (time) to build a process after a slump. In India it's all about winning a tournament, everyone thinks from the point of view of a fan. It takes time," Oltmans said.
"I have always thought about long-term results. When I started in India, I said it would take 6-8 years for India to be a consistent performer. There are times when you need to perform. But that can't be done when you have a new group of players... We started with quite a number of new players in March 2017. So you can't expect to be winning every game straight away because you have to start all over again," he had told DNA.
In the European tour that followed the World League semifinals, a team comprising six debutants, registered three successive wins over Netherlands and Austria. That decision to include young players was credited by the High Performance and Development committee which mentioned "the ray of hope shown (sic) via noteworthy performance of a much younger team at the recently concluded Europe Tour .."
As it turns out, Oltmans' role in this transformation was not enough to keep him in charge of the Indian team. If Oltmans had to be sacked, his exit could not have been delayed any further. Apart from the Asia Cup in October, India will also compete in the Hockey World League finals in Bhubaneshwar in December.
The 2018 calendar will be packed too, with the Commonwealth and Asian Games and the World Cup. These are tournaments for which the review committee did not believe in Oltmans. "The Committee unanimously agreement (sic) that immediate action was required to be taken and while change may not always be comfortable it is essential if we want to position ourselves as a serious global contender for the upcoming critical tournaments in 2018 including the Asian Games & World Cup and 2020 Olympic Games," the statement released by Hockey India read.
Hockey India's decision though has come in for criticism from former captain Viren Rasquinha. "Sacking Oltmans defies logic. If you have given a coach a contract extension, it is the duty of the federation to support him after a couple of bad results. Oltmans is still one of the best coaches in world hockey currently. If the decision to sack him was taken, we needed to have prepared for that. Do we have a plan in place for the next Olympics? Do we have a list of coaches we will shortlist?".
Rasquinha added that India's performance at the Hockey World League semifinals must be seen in the context of India preparing a new generation of players. "We have just introduced a lot of youngsters from the junior World Cup in the team and of course the gap between junior and senior hockey is vast.
"In London, our number one goalkeeper Sreejesh was not playing which made things more difficult. Additionally, we have already qualified for the World League finals by virtue of being the hosts so even losing didn't make a big difference. If we don't allow our coach to experiment with the team during a meaningless year in international hockey, when will we do it? In my opinion, we should have given Oltmans at least until the Commonwealth and Asian Games," he said.