Two and a half decades and 329 international games later, he has retired as one of the country’s greatest hockey players.
Sporting legends are not always made in academies, sometimes they are a conjunction of talent and fate. P R Sreejesh, one of the architects of Indian hockey’s revival and the team’s second straight Olympic bronze medal, traversed an unusual path to greatness. Before him, hockey barely struck a chord in football-mad Kerala. Sreejesh, from a family of farmers, himself had not played hockey until he joined a sports school. Even after a coach diverted him to hockey, he took up goalkeeping because he was too lazy to run laps around the ground in the morning.
Two and a half decades and 329 international games later, he has retired as one of the country’s greatest hockey players. And in an ultimate hat-tip to the champion, the Indian hockey body also retired his jersey number. Never will India have a Sreejesh or No 16. Before him, India, like Brazilian football in their heyday, seldom bothered, let alone revered, its goalkeepers. The goal guards were eternally overshadowed by twinkling forwards and virtuoso midfielders, and recently powerful drag flickers. With his lightning reflexes and commanding composure, he opened the eyes of a country to the unsung virtues of goalkeeping. Often, as in the Paris 2024 quarterfinal against Great Britain, when India were down to 10 men, he was India’s one-man rock of hope. He vindicated a nation’s hopes in him.
Sreejesh in shootouts was a magnetic sight. Spreading his immense wingspan like an eagle, reducing the visible target area, reading his opponent’s mindset — he was The Wall. He was a rare blend — physical yet cerebral, aggressive but not arrogant. He will be missed on the field, but he will also remain an important figure in Indian hockey, as he assumes charge of junior hockey, to share his vast experience and expertise with the younger generation.
