Text & Pics by Dil Bahra

Baboolal Goverdhan Joshi, popularly known as B G Joshi was born on 27 November 1954 in Rajgarh (Biaora), Madhya Pradesh, India.

B G Joshi

He played hockey at School in Rajgarth. He was a Civil Engineer in Water Resources Department for Government of Madhya Pradesh.

Whilst still at School, in 1970, he started compiling hockey statistics and records on tournaments.

He had expanded his collection from just Indian records (both men and women) to a collection of records of every hockey playing country in the world.

He was a regular contributor to several Hindi newspapers in India. He also wrote regularly for Naidunia (Indore), The Hindu, Sportstar, www.fieldhockey.com and www.bharatiyahockey.org.

He was a member of Hockey Writers’ Club since March 2006 and also “Friend of The Hockey Museum”.

He maintained his comprehensive and accurate and update records in three “Record Books on Hockey” which he updated daily.

Cover of one of Joshi’s three Record Books

Book 1: consists medalists summary; matches and goals; standings; the finals; top scorers of all international tournaments (Men, Women and Juniors) since their inception.

Book 2: Indian Men and Women’s Results, Squads, Series played.

Book 3: World Records on 75 different angles of the Hockey game.

He was a humble man, highly respected by his peers.

Despite all his rare achievements, BG Joshi did not receive any award  so far for his enormous contribution to the game from Hockey India and the FIH.

He died on 20 April 2021 and leaves behind his wife, Krishna and sons Neeraj and Shravan.