November 2023. Senior Men National Championship in Chennai. The Mayor Radhakrishnan Stadium had a special guest. India coach Craig Fulton's presence easily caught the eye. The new coach was not new anymore after helming India's direct qualification to Olympics with Asian Games gold. Eight months away, then, from boarding the flight to Paris to hunt for an Olympic gold, the South African was coincidentally in the city of India's last gold-winning captain at the Games, from Moscow 1980, Vasudevan Baskaran.
Fulton had achieved the first objective in his fresh job by booking the ticket to Paris and was clear about the second one as well. "The objective is to try and get higher up the pecking order to number two or one in the world in the next six months," he had told Timesofindia.com during his scouting tour of Chennai.
