Balbir Singh played an outstanding role in restoring the hockey honour of India at the first post-World War Olympics in London
Hockey suffered the most of all sports after partition of the country in 1947. The Lahore region that gave 7 out of 18 Berlin Olympics team members went to Pakistan. The Anglo-Indians (9 out of 16 in the 1928 Olympics) left in droves to settle abroad. The British team, who till then refrained from Olympics hockey, was back in the fray.
Against this historic background, Balbir Singh Dosanj played an outstanding role in restoring the hockey honour of India at the first Post- World War Olympics in London (1948). Not many would have expected the 24-year old centre-forward to inherit the legacy of Dhyan Chand at the London Olympics so easily and elegantly. Balbir Singh scored 6 goals to outplay Argentina (9-1), making it a hat-trick on debut at the Wembley grounds. He would later attain a hat-trick of Olympic gold as well. In the final against the British, latching on to passes from captain Kishan Lal and Kanwar Digvijay Singh Babu, Balbir pumped in the first two goals to gain independent Indias first Olympic gold. The glory, coming after a gap of 12 years re-established Indias supremacy that lasted for another decade and a half.
The format posed a problem in the 1952 Games as India were directly seeded in to the quarterfinals, leaving no place for complacency. The flag-bearer of the Indian contingent at the opening ceremony, Balbir saw India labouring hard to defeat Austria (4-0) in the quarters.
He could score just once. In the semi-finals against Great Britain, Balbir made amends. All three of Indias goals came from his extraordinary ball sense. A second hat-trick in only his fourth Olympics match.
In the final, he made mincemeat of Hollands defence with a splendid tally of five goals even as India won 6-1. “When the ball is with Balbir in the circle, the rival defence is paralysed,” exclaimed his peer Keshav Dutt. Under his captaincy India annexed its sixth straight gold. Balbir was injured while he was playing which led him to comment later: “For me, on one hand was the agony of pain, on the other the ecstasy of winning glory, of triumph. The latter outweighed my pain. It now mattered little even if I lost both my limbs.His post-Olympic career too was colourful. Punjab emerged as a sporting giant under his stewardship. He also served many stints as national coach, selector and manager. India won its only World Cup in Kuala Lumpur in 1975 when he was the manager.
He received the Padma Shree in 1957 – the first sportsman to be so honoured. The octogenarian lives with his son in Canada.
—GE Features