On a sunless winter's day, all that stood out in the grey was a flaming garland of marigolds on the statue. When the Indian hockey team left the National Stadium in Delhi on its last morning before flying off for the World Cup, they walked briskly past the statue. Maybe they were preoccupied. Maybe it was late. Maybe they were only doing what Indian hockey has been trying to do all these years. Leave the shadow of its giants behind, throw off the burden of its history and look for new routes, new roads, new histories. The statue, though, was smiling. Dhyan Chand-for it is his bronze image that backs the stadium's new hockey turf and looks out towards India Gate-would have approved. He could use the company.

To judge Indian hockey by its yesterdays is like taking modern India to task for not resembling the Gupta era-they were both Golden Ages, remember. The Olympic golds, the wizards of hockey, the breathless beauty of it all, came from a time when our mothers were fainting at the sight and sound of Elvis Presley.

"When Dhanraj begins to run, the opposition runs with him." Cedric D'Souza, Indian coach, on star striker Pillai

In the past 30 years, the honours list has grown thin: the World Cup in 1975, an Olympic gold in 1980, an Asian Games gold in 1998 and a Junior World Cup only last year. The Indian team returns to Malaysia, the country where it won the Cup 27 years ago, but it will be playing a very different game from the one played by its illustrious predecessors.

In the past quarter century, there have been few sports that have changed as much as hockey-not just in terms of equipment and surface like tennis, but also in tactics, techniques and pre-match preparation. It is where the Indians fell apart in the past two decades and it is why, along with other reasons like sheer administrative blindness, catching up has been like puffing up the Everest in bathroom slippers.

When the World Cup explodes from the first whistle on February 24, the nostalgia bugs would be advised to switch channels from some damned cricket match and watch. Sixteen nations will play on a turf called System Five, the ball hit from a standing stroke will travel at speeds between 120 and 150 kmph, and go from stick to goal in 1.5 seconds. Once the wizards of hockey attacked in waves, weaving pretty rings around defenders. Today's stickmen will play, to borrow from Harry Potter, wizard's chess at full tilt. In this game only if the men of action and men of thought combine as a seamless whole can a team hope to succeed.

Where then do the Indians fit in this intricate and grand design? Baljit Singh Dhillon, the Indian captain and a quiet man of reasonable words, says, "We have always gone one step ahead. But we have to listen to the criticism until we win something big." The only way to judge the team-they rarely play as a unit at home-is by results. Through 2001 there have been flashes of light. The Indians won the Champions Challenge in Kuala Lumpur, earning them a ticket into the Champions Trophy, meant only for the top six hockey nations in the world.

Sports

THE COMPETITION GERMANY Efficient set pieces Speed on the break Convert close to 60 per cent chances Stars: Bjorn Michel, Oliver Domke PAKISTAN Superior skill advantage Grasp of tactical hockey Ability to score off penalty corners Stars: Shahbaz Ahmed, Sohail Abbas AUSTRALIA Speed in the D, fitness Superb midfielders Aggressive play in the first 10 minutes Stars: Troy Elder, Brent Livermore HOLLAND Speed over the ground Sure hands in the D Smooth transfers out of defence Stars: Bram Lomans, Taeke Taekema

At the World Cup the Indians, who finished ninth in the last edition in Utrecht, Holland, will play seven group matches in nine days. They are in the "easier" of the two groups, but while Australia has old "pedigree", no longer can the other teams in their group-Korea, England, Malaysia, Poland-just be sneezed away.

So the Indians have prepared in three long camps, including physical training that would leave the cricket team counting its blessings (the minimum level required of the "bleep" test for endurance is set at 17 for the hockey team-the Indian cricketers strain for a bit over 11), early morning starts in freezing Ludhiana, video-analysis sessions and simulated matches in sweltering Chennai in which one half lasted an hour instead of the regulation 35 minutes, leaving athletes smelling their own blood.

It is an enormous workload but it is what is being put in by every other team. The Dutch are now in Egypt trying to duplicate Malaysian conditions and to keep set pieces away from spying eyes. For the first time the Indians sent assistant coach C. Kumar out to Malaysia for a six-nation event featuring the big daddies-Holland, Pakistan and Australia-so that he, armed with a video camera, could do a little bit of spying too. Coach Cedric D'Souza has worked out 12 penalty corner set pieces-stealthily moving arrows and dots, dodges and dashes-on his computer's Power Point programme. It may seem obsessive and overzealous but, again, it is all mandatory.

The team has headed for Kuala Lumpur on a bubble of goodwill but should they "fail"-and that's a very loose definition-they know they will be taken to the cleaners. Indian hockey is not only a miserly employer-the players receive an allowance of $20 (Rs 960) per day and a match fee of zero-but an unforgiving one. A year after the India lost the final of the 1982 Asian Games to Pakistan, someone cut the electricity when goalkeeper Mir Ranjan Negi was getting married in Indore, the ceremony continuing in darkness. After Rajiv Mishra, a junior instrumental in taking India to the 1997 World Junior final, suffered from a knee injury, he was left out on a limb, the IHF President K.P.S. Gill remarking, "You can't take care of someone who doesn't want to take care of himself." Clearly the golden era of nurturing hockey players is over too, gone like the grass on which the greats played.

On the current Indian team, Jugraj Singh is already being hailed as the golden boy with the penalty corner hits and being thrown in to the sharks. Before he became a modern maestro Sohail Abbas of Pakistan was groomed for four years and sent to Holland to develop his penalty corner skills. Olympian striker Jagbir Singh says the reason Indians have won little recently has plenty to do with player morale. "We are always changing our players, putting them under pressure. Look at Pakistan-they value their players more. The confidence of their team is always higher."

WORTH THE WAIT: New find Jugraj Singh's success in converting penalty corners will be crucial

The Indians now in Malaysia believe they are different. Half of the 22 now in Kuala Lumpur-the squad will be trimmed to 18-come from the under-21 World Cup winning squad but have played on the national team as part of a core group in international competitions. Their pure optimism may be easily drained in the future but for the moment it is stuff that could be drunk neat. But only as an aperitif, to stimulate the senses. The meat and potatoes of the team remains the experience of Dhillon, the peerless Dhanraj Pillai, Sabu Varkey and defender Dilip Tirkey is worth its weight in golden boots. The pressure of playing for the "revival" of Indian hockey may just be too hot a cup of tea for the juniors."We have to channelise their speed, thrust and off-the-ball running," says Dhillon. "Sometimes greater the speed the greater the mistakes."

Pillai, playing in his final World Cup, matching sticks and wits with the most youthful, will be the centre of attention and play two parts: that of goal-scorer and panic-creator. Says D'Souza, whose move to play Pillai out on the right instead of dead centre has caused some heartburn: "When he's playing, the opposition is more on guard. Dhanraj's reputation precedes him. When he runs, the opposition runs with him." The point is whether he has the ball or he doesn't. If he doesn't, he is able to create space for the rest of the forwards. When it works, it is pure theatre. When it doesn't, Pillai's skills seem wasted. The great man has a great stage again.

D'Souza has returned to handle the hot potato of the Indian team after a stint in 1996. He says he has tried to soften his own man-management style and break down the barrier between seniors and juniors, north and south. He has set up an "inner circle" of seniors, draws up the room lists and tries to put players from different regions together. "That way the common language is hockey. And humour. To the seniors I've said, 'If you want to be called seniors, you have to take the responsibility of behaving like grown men, take charge of the younger players.'" It's a prickly subject, this, a hangover from a history of deference. As a rookie, a member of this team found himself intimidated by the aloof manner of Pargat Singh, who to him became not Pargat Singh, comrade, but Pargat Singh, "triple Olympian". The player says, "They were all supremely talented players but as a team-what?"

It is a culture that needs to be dismantled before any team can move ahead. If not checked and balanced in this World Cup, it could yet delay India's dream. Former coach and Olympian M.P. Ganesh tries to be realistic, "Getting into the semi-final would be a very good effort. What we all really need to see is India proving that they belong to the Champions Trophy group-the elite of the hockey world." India did in an era long gone, but this is a new century and it must find its place in it all over again. "We must get over this psyche of, 'We were the champions and we will remain so,'" says Jagbir.

When striker Deepak Thakur came home as a junior world champion, he saw what could be: not just the headlines and TV lights, but 400 children turning out for under-15 hockey trials in Patiala. It's like every man on the team can almost sight the corner, can sense the moment when he can stop being the ordinary son of extraordinary fathers and be himself. It is time to turn the corner and time to turn the page. A new history for Indian hockey-whether a good, bad or an ugly one-waits to be written. The team now in Kuala Lumpur comprises its writers.