'There Is No Spark In The Team'

Conceding that the players lacked "spark and passion", Indian hockey coach Rajinder Singh today said the entire team should take theblame for India's debacle in the Champions Trophy.

"I am at a loss really, because we started off so well against Holland in our first match. We led 3-0 until the 64thminute, and suddenly, everything fell apart. Perhaps, the boys are still to recover from that defeat, and we went on to losetwo other matches," he said in Amstelveen.

"There is no spark in the team. The passion is missing and I am not happy with their recovery. Perhaps, the fact thatseveral key players were ill at the camp in Lucknow and have not recovered fully, might have affected our performancetoo."

India, pre-tournament favourites, have lost three of their four matches so far ruling themselves out of contentionfor top honours.

"We lost the matches due to our own mistakes and we are all responsible for our poor performance so far."

Rajinder Singh felt that the players have lost focus, considering the number of scoring chances they messed up ineach of the four matches so far.

"We had played extremely well in Australia and Hamburg recently, and frankly, it is difficult to explain the suddenloss of form of our players," he said. 

"Our forwards have not been able to force penalty corners and like I said earlier, themid-field play continues to worry me. But more importantly, the boys do not seem to be able torecover from a defeat, and I do not see the passion in them," he said.

When asked whether a sports psychologist could help the players come out of the depression, Rajinder said: "I don'tthink we need a psychologist. I mean look at other teams like Australia and Holland. They do not have one (psychologist) andyet they have been playing well."

Regarding the physical fitness of the players, he said: "They appear to be very tired. I spoke to the physio(Sampath Kumar) and he felt that some of the players who fell ill in Lucknow might not have sufficiently recovered."

PTI