The history of Indian hockey will be rendered insignificant without due honour to the greatest exponent of the game — Dhyan Chand. Indian army’s maiden tour of New Zealand in 1926 left no doubt about his superlative skills and scoring prowess. His stick seemed to possess some unexplained magical dexterity.

Such was his credentials that he was selected for the Olympics without trials, which the simpleton resented as “unfair” in his autobiography Goal.

However, surprisingly, captaincy was denied to him for long till the Western Asiatic Games in 1934 only to be taken away for the next assignment just to accommodate a high profile player! He did not utter a word and took things in his stride.

Record books showed six goals against Dhyan Chand’s name in the classic final against Germany in the ‘Hitler Olympics’ (1936), but he argued that he scored only three goals — such was his honesty and greatness. No wonder he was described “one who employed the minimum of perspiration and the maximum of inspiration.” The entire history of Indian sports has not seen one so gifted yet so modest.

Genius Dhyan Chand innovated tricks to score on the spur of the moment, rather than follow copybook patterns. He only had an uncanny knack of spotting a gap before it was there and scoring through deception.

Dhyan Chand made scoring of goals against some of the most powerful teams seem like the easiest task. 133 out of 338 in the 1932 pre-Olympic tour, 59 out of 175 in the 1936 Pre-Olympics, 19 out of 35 in Los Angeles Olympics and 11 out of 38 in the 1936 Berlin Olympics are a few among his phenomenal goals tally. In 1935, in a tour that included New Zealand, Sri Lanka and Australia, he scored 201 goals, figuring in 43 out of 48 matches. In the 1947 East Africa tour, the 42-years old scored 61 goals in 22 matches. Even age could not diminish his penchant for goals. He had taken up the tour as the host nation had made a special request to the Indian Hockey Federation and said, “No Dhyan Chand, no team please.”

Dhyan Chand is now more than a name. He is a synonym for excellence. Balbir Singh, who had a big hand in India winning the next three Olympics (1948-1956), was fondly designated as the ‘modern-day Dhyan Chand’. Goal-machine Habib-ur-Rehman (1952 and 1956 Olympics) was dubbed as the ‘Dhyan Chand of Pakistan’. Not for nothing did the Indian Olympic Association name him the ‘Player of the Century’ and the Government of India named an award after him. .

Dhyan Chand breathed his last on 3rd December 1979 at Delhi. The mortal remains of the immortal hero were buried at the Jhansi Heroes’ ground in Jhansi, a historic town in Uttar Pradesh, with full military honours.

Dhyan Chand’s legacy continued in the form of his son Ashok Kumar who went on to score the winning goal in the final when we won the only World Cup so far in 1975. One of Dhyan Chand’s grand daughters, Neha Singh, also played for India for many years.

Excerpts from ‘Great Indian Olympians’ hockey part of which was covered by K. Arumugam