Hockey Flashbacks : India's first and only victory of 1975 FIH World Cup
Some say it was a fluke, while others say it was mere chance. However, even though this proved to be a false dawn, the Indian team went on to win their first and only field hockey World Championship till date, when they clinched the top honours in the 1975 edition, held at Stadium Merdeka in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Balbir Singh Dosanjh: The legend comes back
As the preparations began for the World Cup, the Indian Hockey Federation decided to pull out all stops to ensure that India returns with nothing less than the ultimate World Cup.
For this, they decided to recall the charismatic hockey legend, triple Olympic gold medalist Balbir Singh Dosanjh back in action.
Like the Indian team in the early 70s, Balbir had a roller coaster ride too throughout his career.
Despite being a triple Olympic gold medalist, he was allegedly not allowed to proceed for the hockey camp of the Rome Olympics, and even though he was allowed to take part in the 1962 Asian Games, he was forced to sit out most of the time, resulting in India's loss against Pakistan in the finals.
Even as a coach, his tale was no better. Some sources even say that he was appointed as the team coach along with ex-national champion N N Mukherjee, known as Habul Da in the hockey circles, for the Tokyo Olympics 1964.
However, at the last moment, he was replaced by his Melbourne 1956 teammate, Dharam Singh, and as a result, he was not allowed to board the official airplane assigned for the Indian contingent.
So the 1975 Hockey World Cup was his first official assignment as the coach of the Indian hockey team.
A roller coaster ride to the semifinals
Like the coach, the Indian team's campaign at the World Cup was no cakewalk either. They began with a slender win over England by 2-1, then proceeded to a meager draw with their once favorite whipping boys, i.e. Australia. Then, the team pummeled Ghana by 7-0 before surprisingly going down to a rather weak Argentina, who pummeled them by 2-1.
It was only when India met West Germany in the last league match, that their killer instincts came back to their rescue, and they defeated the German team by 3-1 to proceed to the semifinals, topping the pool on the basis of a better goal average.
Overcoming the Malaysian challenge
However, the semifinals were nothing less than a nightmare for the Indian team, when they met the hosts Malaysia.
Poon Foon Loke struck a superb goal in the 32nd minute of the match to give Malaysia a handsome lead of 1-0 by the end of the first half, and for a while, it looked as if India was in for a shock upset.
Even when Shivaji Pawar struck a goal back, it wasn't enough for the Indian team, as the lead was extended by S. Shanmughanathan in the 42nd minute. By the time 60 minutes had completed, it looked as if it was all over.
But then, came the saviour of the day in the form of Aslam Sher Khan. In the dying minutes of the match, Aslam found an unmistakable gap in the Malaysian defence as he earned a penalty corner, and did not waste a single moment into striking the ball crisply into the Malaysian goalpost, equalizing the score by 2-2.
The match now stretched to extra time, where Harcharan Singh, a part of the bronze medalist Indian team from 1972 Munich Olympics, struck the golden goal to give India the much-needed edge to storm into the finals.
The legendary finals
The finals saw the classic rivals on the field once again as India met Pakistan for the 1975 World Cup finals. It was expected that this would be nothing less than a nail-biting encounter, and so it was, when Muhammad Zahid Sheikh struck the first goal of the match only in the 17th minute, giving Pakistan a lead of 1-0 up to the first half.
However, India was far from being out. In the 44th minute, India earned a penalty corner, and the star of the 1973 edition, Surjit Singh Randhawa, struck the ball crisply into the goal, equalizing the score by 1-1.
But the glorious moment in the history of Indian hockey came in the 51st minute, when the illustrious son of the "Wizard of Hockey' Major Dhyan Chand, i.e. Ashok Kumar Singh, struck a beautiful field goal into the Pakistani goalpost, giving India the ultimate lead of 2-1.
19 minutes later, it was all over. India was now officially the World Champions, after being seven-time Olympic champions.
Sadly, this major win proved to be a false dawn for Indian hockey, as the introduction of AstroTurf in Montreal Olympics 1976 triggered their decline.
Even though they scraped an Olympic gold in Moscow Olympics 1980, it would take them another 34 years to get back on track, when a change of rules in field hockey by mid-2014 gave the dying Indian hockey a new lease of life.
As the Asian powerhouse, Indian hockey is going into the 2018 edition to taste a slice of the glory they had once received 43 years ago.