S.V. Sunil summarily dismisses the thought but the idea that he could have made a decent career for himself in athletics is not without basis. The last time he underwent a 40m speed test, at one of the national camps, he recorded a split of 3.94s. By any standard, across sports, that is staggeringly fast. That also makes him, by some distance, the quickest player on the Indian hockey team. If it wasn't obvious already.
"I took part in a couple of track events in school, but it was so long ago that I don’t remember what happened," he says. "In any case, I started playing hockey very early."
Sunil's speed as a forward has become an integral feature of the Indian team. His rapier thrusts upfield dictate the pace of India's attacking moves, and open up spaces that may not have otherwise existed.
"I have always been fast, but over the last couple of years of training I have improved beyond my own expectations," he says.
"Sometimes, I run too fast and I have to slow down to control the ball better. In our sport, varying your speed is more important than merely running fast."
The 25-year-old has steadily fashioned himself into a goal-scorer but he admits that issues remain with his finishing. At the Asian Games, he missed a simple chance in the final over Pakistan, a game India eventually won on penalties. In the semifinals of the Champions Trophy earlier this month, against the same opponent, Sunil and his colleagues were guilty of considerable profligacy in front of goal.
India lost a close contest, leaving him distraught. "We should've won that game by six or seven goals. I also missed a chance against Australia (in the third-place play-off). I feel sad about it because I had worked on that part of my game after the Asian Games," he says.
"The coaches had worked with all the forwards on improving in the striking circle — timing our runs, judging whether the ball would be played to the near or the far post, and beating the 'keeper. We have to continue training hard."
India's fourth-place finish at the Champions Trophy had also to do with conceding goals in spirit-sapping fashion — either in the dying moments of a match or immediately after scoring at the other end.
There were at least five such instances — in the games against Germany, Argentina, the Netherlands and Pakistan. It is an old and rather annoying habit.
"We don't know what happened this time," Sunil sighs. "There was a period when we'd stopped conceding like that. We had done a lot of video analysis and worked on this area. But we don't know how this crept into our game again. I suppose we did make silly mistakes."
The exit of the Australian coach Terry Walsh probably didn't help either. India had improved visibly under Walsh, winning a silver medal sat the Commonwealth Games and a gold at the Asiad, but his stint ended just ahead of the Champions Trophy, amidst a maelstrom of controversy.
In Bhubaneshwar, the Hockey India High Performance Director, Roelant Oltmans, stood in for him. Sunil denies, however, that this had any bearing on performance.
"Oltmans was doing the same thing that the coach did. There was continuity — in our style of play, our system. So we didn't find the transition difficult. Walsh had told us in a meeting about his departure — he had asked us to not worry about his situation and focus on the hockey."
Underlying Sunil's remarkable progress, from being a talented youngster to a mainstay of the Indian team, is a relentless desire to improve. Born in Somwarpet in Coorg to a family of goldsmiths, he pitched up at the town's renowned Blue Star Hockey Club as a child of five.
"I'm probably the only one in my community playing hockey or any kind of sport," he laughs. "I owe it all to the culture of the place, all the members of the club and the retired players from Somwarpet. Our seniors and coaches were devoted to hockey.
"If we skipped practice one day, they made us suffer for it the next. We were afraid to miss a single session. They put that fear into us. I wouldn't have come this far today without that fear."s
