Deepak Thakur is sporting icon to come from Himachal Pradesh. Deepak Thakur, who developed an interest in hockey whilst studying in Mount Shivalik school, Una. Deepak Thakur Sonkhla was born on December 28, 1980 in Bhamowal village in Hoshiarpur district. Deepak has a sister, younger to him, who is a national badminton player. At the age of nine years, his father, Nardev Singh, taught him the rudiments of the game. The father, who now works with the Himachal Pradesh state government, in Una, always encouraged his children to play. He learnt the game watching others play at a field near his house. At the age of twelve years he got his first hockey stick. Deepak Thakur took to hockey like the proverbial duck to water. “I used to train at the stadium in Una, but there was no coach who could guide me,” he recalls nostalgically. Deepak’s hockey dreams would have withered away but fortunately his smouldering talent was spotted and properly harnessed in his formative years.

The big break came in 1993 when he was just thirteen years old. He got selected during the hockey trials at the Sports Authority of India’s (SAI’s) training centre in Ludhiana. He was inducted in the SAI Sports Promotion Development Area (SPDA) Training Centre in Patiala and for the first time he got the opportunity to have a feel of a synthetic hockey field at the National Institute of Sports (NIS) in Patiala. The SPDA hockey centre in Patiala started in May 1991 with eight boys under SAI hockey coach Inderjit Singh Gill. Deepak Thakur was not in the centre at that time. A year later, one player was removed from the centre, but in 1993, three more players — Deepak Thakur, Prabhjot Singh and Yudhvir — were inducted in it. In 1994, 13 more players joined the centre, which from then onwards got firmly established.

Deepak Thakur got motivated to excel in hockey when he witnessed the senior national team training at NIS Patiala. His current skipper Dhanraj Pillay became his role model. “I derived a lot of inspiration from Dhanraj Pillay’s style of playing. He is my model,” says Deepak Thakur. Another player who has inspired Deepak Thakur a great deal is Pakistan’s legendary inside forward, the mercurial Shahbaz Ahmed. Deepak has tried to model his game on these two great forwards of the modern era.

However, old timers feel that Deepak Thakur with his speed, stealth, crafty placements and deflections resembles the dashing B.P Govinda who excelled for India and Indian Airlines in the early 1970s. Three decades ago Indian Airlines forward line was a joy to behold. Skilful inside forwards Inam-ur-Rehman and Ashok Kumar dazzled and beguiled with their mesmerising stick-work and dribbling skills. This talented duo provided the passes to the rampaging Govinda, who like a flashing meteor, would dart into space and shoot goalwards from all angles. This brilliant trio, were in full cry when Indian Airlines won the Nehru Cup at the Shivaji Stadium, Delhi in December 1971, ousting a cohesive and tenacious Great Britain XI 2-0 in the final.

There are shades of Govinda in Deepak Thakur’s predatory instincts — sense of opportunism in front of goal and sudden speed. When playing for the national team, his one time idol and current skipper Dhanraj Pillay is often the provider for Deepak Thakur who is the perfect fox in the box or artful dodger when in the striking circle. Many of Thakur’s international goals, about 40, have stemmed from Dhanraj Pillay’s measured passes. Their slick combination is a reminder of the dazzling brilliance of Ashok Kumar and B.P. Govinda three decades ago.

In the current national team, the stocky Deepak Thakur and the lanky Gagan Ajit are the Rivaldo and Ronaldo of Indian hockey. India relies on them for goals. Both came of age in the 7th Junior World Cup in Hobart, Australia in October, 2001. Deepak Thakur scored a hat-trick in the memorable 6-1 triumph over Argentina in the final and finished as the tournament’s top-scorer with 10 goals, all of them field goals. Earlier he had also scored four goals, including a hat-trick in the 7-1win against Scotland in a group C league match. Recalling those goals, Thakur says, “my third goal against Scotland is the best of my goals as it was scored from nearly a zero angle.”

Two months later in December 2001, Deepak Thakur again finished as top-scorer of an important international tournament. It was the inaugural Champions Challenge Cup in Malaysia where India won the gold medal and Deepak Thakur, with six field goals, was the highest scorer. Many hockey experts consider that the successes in both the Hobart Junior World Cup and Champions Challenge Cup in 2001 were the turning points in Indian hockey and gave an impetus to the current resurgence.
Both Thakur and Gagan Ajit had a year earlier represented India in the 2000 Sydney Olympics but failed to impress. Thakur admits that the success in the Hobart Junior World Cup was the turning point of his career. He says, “At Hobart, I think I matured as a player and my confidence increased after my three goals against Scotland. I played consistently, whereas earlier I would tend to drift”.

Thakur made his senior India debut, as a precocious teenager in the South Africa-India test series in 1999. However, he got recognised as a classy predator and the artful dodger, adept in several positions only after the 2001 Junior World Cup. Current senior national coach Rajinder Singh is using Deepak Thakur as a right winger. Even in domestic hockey, Thakur is not a regular right winger. It is a tribute to his adaptability and game sense that he has functioned effectively as a right winger and even constantly drifts into scoring positions. Playing as a right winger, he scored five goals in the 25th Champions trophy in Amstelveen, six goals in the 6th Asia Cup in Kuala Lumpur and two goals in the first Afro-Asian Games.

It has been a long and winding road to stardom for the modest, phlegmatic but determined Deepak Thakur. A year after joining SPDA Patiala in 1994 Deepak Thakur played for Punjab Schools in the pre-Nehru Qualifying Round at Jalandhar. The same year he represented SPDA Centre, Patiala, in the Sub-Junior Nehru Hockey Tournament in Delhi. The real break for Deepak Thakur came in September 1997 when the under-21 Indian hockey team toured Russia to play a series of Test matches. This tour gave him valuable exposure and rich experience. In 1999, the men’s national hockey coaching camp was at the NIS in Patiala. The Indian team played a few practice matches against the SPDA Centre. The then national team coach, Vasudevan Baskaran, was much impressed by Deepak Thakur and rated him as a player of great potential. A year before Deepak Thakur was already in the limelight, when he was declared the best player in the 1998 Surjit Singh Memorial Hockey Tournament in Jalandhar. Watching him in action, former India skipper Pargat Singh hailed him as a bright prospect. Another former India centre-forward Sukhbir Singh Grewal appreciated Deepak

Thakur’s attitude, speed and goal scoring knack.
Ever since, Deepak Thakur never looked back. His progress was gradual but he went up the ladder, step by step. The constant foreign exposure tours organised by the Indian Hockey Federation has paid rich dividends in nurturing talent. Deepak Thakur also benefited from such foreign exposure with four foreign tours in 1998-’99. He toured Germany, Belgium, Malaysia, South Africa and Malaysia. In 2000, he went to play for India in the 4-Nation hockey tournament at Perth (Australia) where India won the title. The same year he played in the Junior Asia Cup in Malaysia where he scored 17 field goals in eight matches, including a double hat-trick. Later, he represented India at the Sydney Olympics, a great honour, but had to be contended with a solitary goal against Argentina. A year later, he played in the 9-Nation Azlan Shah Cup, in Malaysia. His tally of five goals enabled India bag a bronze medal. At the Prime Minister’s Gold Cup in Dhaka in 2001, in which India won the gold medal, Deepak Thakur scored six field goals.

Thakur’s goal-scoring prowess was evident from his early forays in domestic hockey tournaments. As a stripling sixteen-year-old in the 1995 Junior Nationals, he scored seven goals in just three matches. Two years later in the next Junior Nationals he was at his prolific best notching up 18 goals to obtain the Player of the Tournament award. His goal-scoring knack earned him a call-up to the senior hockey team. Deepak Thakur is one of the rare players to don senior India colours before playing in any junior international assignment. After being a stand-bye for the 1999 India-Pakistan test series he made his senior debut in the South Africa-India test series, when V. Baskaran was the national coach.

Making an international debut is an arduous task but getting established in the international squad is even more demanding. Many promising junior international forwards like left winger Harbhajan Singh (BSF), inside forwards Rajesh Chowhan (Air India) and Y.S. Rawat (Indian Airlines) and winger Rajpal Singh (Chandigarh) have despite immense potential faded away. Creditably Deepak Thakur fulfilled his ample potential and showed steady improvement. Hockey stardom also fetched him career rewards. In the year 2000 Deepak Thakur got a high profile job in the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and has a monthly salary of about Rs. 25,000. He led IOC to victory in the 2000 Senior Nehru Gold Cup and again in the Mumbai leg of the 60th Senior National championship.
The old adage that history is often made more by accident than design could be applied to Deepak Thakur’s hockey career. As a child his ambition was to be doctor and he was keen to study medicine. His hockey talent was spotted and nurtured at an early age and so medicine’s loss has been Indian hockey’s gain. Reserved by temperament, the taciturn Deepak Thakur has all the hobbies of an upwardly mobile young man like dressing fashionably, watching movies and listening to music. His favourite actress is Rani Mukherjee and he likes sporting Ray-Ban sunglasses and keeps a Walkman by his side. Luxuries are now affordable as besides his salary he also gets an equal sum from Sahara, the sponsors of the Indian hockey team. Deepak Thakur also keeps track of what is happening in other sports and likes watching international football especially Real Madrid and Manchester United. Like many young Indians he enjoys watching cricket on television and considers Sachin Tendulkar as his idol. He also likes the aggressive approach of the Pakistan cricket team.
Above all he has the fire in his belly, a deep-rooted passion and hunger for success. Coach Rajinder Singh narrates that during the 2001 Junior World Cup, when India was on the verge of elimination, after losing 1-2 to Australia it was the duo of Deepak Thakur and Gagan Ajit Singh who inspired their team-mates that ‘Team India’ could still do it. They overcame Netherlands 4-3 in the next match, qualified for the semifinals and the rest is history.

On their return to Delhi, when chased by pesky television crews Deepak Thakur displayed a calm demeanour and great maturity in his replies when he played down any suggestions of regional differences and said, “above all we are Indians.” His ardent desire to succeed and strong sense of Indianness is evident when he lists A.R. Rehman’s soaring rendition of Vande Mataram, which the team listens to whilst travelling to the ground for matches, as one of his favourite songs. This 23-year-old from the land of apples has the demeanour, talent and desire to be the Dhanraj Pillay of the early 21st century.

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Source: Top Hockey Stars 2004 published by Field Hockey Publications