INDIAN HOCKEY LEGEND: Dhanraj Pillay
Mercurial forward Dhanraj Pillay’s international career was two years old when he was selected for the first of four Olympics he featured in. Chief coach Balkishen Singh, himself a hockey Olympic gold medallist, relied on Pillay’s dash and instinctively opportunistic scoring skills for the 1992 Barcelona Olympic campaign. Being an up and coming player he had to work a lot before getting the confidence of the coach.
He was played as an attacking forward in Barcelona. Four years later, he was an automatic choice for the Atlanta Olympics. He had by then collected #?…caps. His stature had also risen, as his artistic and athletic game had been winning the heart of the masses. He had by then become a popular star. He was among the rare players who was played in all seven matches at Barcelona.
Two years after the Atlanta Olympics, India won the Asian Games gold medal at Bangkok (1998) under his captaincy. Pillay was the top scorer there with 11 goals. The elusive continental crown came after a gap of 32 years. Collectively, it all catapulted him to the top of the popularity charts. He had attained an unenviable image of being the most popular sporting stars in India. He was a veritable crowd puller. However, it was not smooth going for him after the milestone. Moscow Olympic gold medal-winning captain Vasudevan Baskaran, the then national coach, braved resistance from the authorities in recalling the sidelined Pillay for the 2000 Olympics. By then the player had many run-ins with the authorities on various issues. With 262 caps against his name, and figuring in the World Cup and Asian Games three times, he was easily the most experienced player when he travelled to the Sydney Olympics. Contrary to record, history and stardom, Dhanraj was not selected to lead the Sydney Olympic team, his third Games campaign and evoked intense debate. However, the team was one of the best prepared. It lost the semi-final by a hair’s breadth.
The next four years saw Pillay in and out of the national team and it presented the game poorly to the masses. However, he could spend those times playing in foreign clubs, top-level All India tournaments and staying fit. Such was his aura that he survived long spells of absence from the national team. With #?……… caps against his name, and having played both World Cup and Asian Games a record FOUR times, he expected a call-up for his fourth Olympics. However, Pillay was not considered for the 2003 Olympic Qualifying tournament, but the chief coach Rajinder Singh Sr was forced to recall him for the 2004 Athens Olympics after a public outcry and demonstrations. As irony would have it, even Rajinder was dropped at the last moment. In his place came the German Gerard Rach -- the first instance of a foreign coach of an Indian national squad. It was a new experience for Dhanraj, commanded by a non-Olympian in an Olympics. Rach played him in all but one match though less time in comparison with previous Olympic matches. When Dhanraj landed in Athens for another shot at an Olympic medal, he had made history. He was the first – and only till now -- Indian player to figure in the four Olympics on synthetic turf. Legends Leslie Claudius and Udham Singh had the distinction being four-time Olympians before him but the game was played only on natural grass in those days.