TRIPPING UP: Jugraj Singh (left) and Saini (centre) fight a losing battle against Australia

It happens only in Indian hockey. A sad and troubled national coach sitting before television cameras announcing he had been sacked and asking, "Who is the chief coach here?" A year ago, the same man, Cedric D'Souza, began his second innings as India coach in triumph with victory in the nine-nation Prime Minister's Gold Cup.

But that was then, the stuff of memory. March 2, 2002, the day of the sacking, was current reality. D'Souza asked the sprinkling of journalists sitting before him in Kuala Lumpur, "Tell me guys, is this the way? I am supposed to sit on the bench, assist and advise and attend press conferences as if nothing has happened. Who is the chief coach here?" There were no replies. D'Souza flew back to Mumbai, replaced by his assistant C.R. Kumar. The Indian team, chock-full of the juniors who had won the under-21 World Cup in Hobart in October 2001, came to the World Cup on the back of a title victory in the Champions Challenge. But in Malaysia, the Indians were in complete disarray, failing to win any of their first four matches and blowing their chances of a semi-final spot in a matter of days. So D'Souza took the chop and says, "They looked for a scapegoat and found one. It's okay with me."

English coach Malcolm Wood said mournfully, "If you ever pray, pray for Indian hockey now." Only divine intervention could have helped the Indians who after a disastrous start, were left fighting for the 9th position in the Cup standings. When D'Souza left, Pakistan's hard-hitting team manager Brigadier Khalid Sajjad Khokhar said, "You can't do that to a coach." Drawing closer, he asked, "But where was the hockey? India was not playing what they should have been playing."

Somewhere there, in the answer to Khokhar's question and the saga behind D'Souza's removal, was the truth: India was not playing the hockey it could. It was playing a confused, hybrid variety of Indian-European styles. Along with that, curious player selections led to results like the draw with Japan and a 2-3 loss to Malaysia.

Former India players reporting on the World Cup were shocked. "I really don't understand what the team is playing," said former star forward Jagbir Singh. "You don't want to play the traditional system, fine. But this is neither here nor there."

Kumar now says the team's failings were tactical. "We were going wrong tactically in the previous matches. (Dhanraj) Pillay has to be left alone in the circle and Jugraj (Singh) is a full back so he should be played in that position. That's what I am trying to do."

The positional decisions taken by the Indian think tank in its early matches baffled many. Baljit Singh Saini, a midfielder, started the first match against Japan as centre forward. Then, there were five substitutions in six minutes, driving spectators dizzy. Deep defender Jugraj was put into an attacking centre-half position where he found himself lost in midfield. But D'Souza stands by his decisions. He told India Today from Mumbai, "Saini played like this at the Sydney Olympics. Jugraj played in the same position in the Champions Challenge. We have been using the same system for the past year and a half. Is it suddenly all wrong? That's hogwash."

IN: Kumar says there were tactical errors

OUT: D'Souza stands by his decisions

Like a few had feared, the World Cup exposed younger players-such as Kanwalpreet Singh-to a quality of competition they were not ready for. With substitutions coming in fast and furious, the team was unable to settle down. When the Indians lost their fourth match to England, dissension broke out in the ranks. A few team members accused captain Baljit Singh Dhillon and his brother Daljit of trying to score goals on their own. Said former coach and Indian captain Vasudevan Bhaskaran: "Playing Baljit Dhillon as a freewheeling forward or midfielder is a mistake as he will try and get more balls, not realising that it's teamwork that wins. He cannot win the match on his own. Neither should he try."

In the Indian side some say there were differences with defensive tactics used, as also palpable resentment at the inclusion of Baljit Saini and Daljit and the decision to drop junior World Cup captain Gagan Ajit Singh. According to D'Souza's rules, no player who missed a camp would be eligible for selection. Star forward Pillay had missed a camp and, therefore, the World Cup qualifiers. Saini, who had chicken pox and couldn't participate in the World Cup camp, made it to the team. Daljit replaced Gagan Ajit, on the ground that Gagan was not in good form before the World Cup. D'Souza says he will not discuss selection and says those who do, do so with a "vested interest" that surfaces every time the team struggles.

Jagbir believes it is time to look deeper and further. "Most of the players have not even played domestic matches. Do we even have a domestic league from where we can pick performers for the team?" Another former player who did not want to be named believed that most of the players on the current team did not play domestic hockey for fear of being exposed. "There should be a criterion that a player has to play 30-40 matches at the domestic level before being selected," he says.

There is a belief that D'Souza, a deep thinker with a great passion for the game, experimented too much in this World Cup. A man of strong likes and dislikes, D'Souza remains a strong believer in his own methods. The man himself offers the following advice, "The key issue is not to make drastic changes now, because we have several important tournaments coming up."

After India beat Spain in its play-off match for the 9th place, Kumar pointedly said, "We played attacking hockey and that is what we should play ... not defensive hockey." Kumar, who became more vocal about his disagreement with D'Souza's tactics once the senior man left, is not an automatic replacement. The options, though, are limited. Senior players state in private that there is "not a single coach" in India they look up to and the time had come to look overseas. Says Ajitpal Singh, captain of the team that won the 1975 World Cup: "Every Indian coach has failed and the boys will only listen to someone who has been successful as a coach." The practice of foreign coaches is common enough: Malaysia works with German Paul Lissek and Dutch Maurit Hendriks will soon coach Spain.

Australian Ric Charlesworth, a former World Cup-winning captain and current coach, says he's up for the job. "Why not?" he asks. "It's a skilled team. With the right inputs, it will do very well." The facts are clear. Indian coaches, 13 of them in 11 years, have failed miserably. It's time to open minds in Indian hockey. Nationality does not matter. Results matter. Winning matters. It's time to accept that answers probably lie with someone outside India and outside Indian hockey.

The author is the sports editor of The Asian Age