IN CONVERSATION
A never-say-die spirit
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Sundeep Misra, author of Dhanraj Pillay’s unauthorised biography, talks about the mercurial hockey star. ANUJ KUMAR
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Photo: Vino John
Great player: Dhanraj Pillay
Arrogant, temperamental or simply brilliant, love him or hate him, Dhanraj Pillay kept hockey alive in the heart of millions of Indians when the game was losing its shine. This is what Sundeep Misra surmises in his book Forgive Me Amma, an unauthorised biography of the mercurial striker.
Freedom to write
“I have been following his career since he first appeared on the national scene in 1989. Over the years we have had differences of opinion. Particularly, in 1998 when, during the World Cup at Utrecht, I felt he deliberately hid his injury so that he could be captain of the Indian team. He felt otherwise and blessed me with the choicest of abuses. I wanted to include the episode and decided to do an unauthorised biography. As a journalist it also gave me the freedom to write,” says Sundeep, who has written extensively on the game for different publications.
But he mentions that Dhanraj doesn’t want to be questioned. Whenever faced with the prospect of bad showing, he would go into his shell. “At the same time, he is a Cancerian, always looking for attention,” quips the seasoned journalist.
In fact, this has been the charge against Dhanraj. For all the talent, he has been accused of playing to the gallery highlighted by his zeal for keeping the ball in his possession, which at times resulted in the team’s poor showing.
“This is a common Indian blunder, and Dhanraj also inherited it. Indians play more with heart and emotion and seldom with mind. Once a player dodges two, he wishes to cut past one more. This finally results in losing possession. Also at times when the team fails to score in the first half, one of the senior players feels now it is his responsibility to score, forgetting it is a team game.” Such attitudes, he feels, can win you some matches but not the tournament.
Dhanraj, he adds, is very much like Leander Paes. “He gives everything for the country.” A related incident has resulted in the interesting title. Dhanraj had promised his mother an Olympic medal before leaving for the Sydney Olympics, but unfortunately India drew with Poland and did not qualify for the semi-finals.
After the match, Sundeep called up assistant coach Harinder Singh who was in Dhanraj’s room. Dhanraj was speaking to his mother, crying and apologising for not being able to keep his promise. Harinder excused himself but forgot to switch off the phone. And Sundeep managed to hear the whole conversation.
Temperamental
Talking about his frequent spats with the coaches, Sundeep says it was often the coaches who were responsible.
“Dhanraj, by temperament, is a man who would call a spade a spade. Now it is the coach’s responsibility to handle an individual player. What happened was that certain coaches began to see Dhanraj as a competitor. He was getting all the attention. Still he lasted more than the tenure of all such coaches put together. I think the only man who could give him competition in this regard is K.P.S. Gill,” he laughs.
On a serious note, he adds, “Dhanraj has not been rigid in his approach. We all know that he was a touch player in the Mohammed Shahid mould. He knew that he could not produce a hard hit from the top of the circle. Over the years he developed a half-push half-slap shot. When told he was losing pace, he agreed to play in the midfield and started feeding the strikers with success.”
On the commercial aspect of the game vis-À-vis cricket, Sundeep says there were a few things Dhanraj never understood about cricket.
“If the batsman scores a century and the team loses, the batsman still is the hero. In hockey, you might score three goals but if your team loses, no one remembers you.”
Sundeep feels Dhanraj could find a place in any World eleven. “Some senior players feel that he was just a great crowd puller. But to me he had the speed, the stamina, the fitness and the technique to figure in any team that brought home the Olympic gold. The seniors should also factorise the weakness of the opposition when India was creating havoc on the hockey field. Today Germany and Holland are playing precision games. Everything has turned scientific.”
He also feels that psychologically “they can read our players better. And we still have not been to provide turf at school level. The coaches are changed without being given a fair run. Each one has his own theory confusing the players. Even China is a threat now.”
Though Dhanraj has said he is waiting for a recall, Sundeep feels it is just a reflection of the never-say-die spirit of the man with which he won many a battle for his country single handedly.
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