Dhanraj Pillay (born 16 July 1968) is an Indian former field hockey player and captain of the national team, among the finest forwards the game has seen. Between 1989 and 2004 he played 339 international matches and scored about 170 goals. He is the only player to have appeared in four Olympic Games, four World Cups, four Champions Trophies and four Asian Games. His speed, his long hair streaming behind him and his temper made him the most watched Indian hockey player of his generation.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Dhanraj Pillay |
| Born | 16 July 1968, Khadki, Pune, Maharashtra |
| Age | 58 |
| Sport | Field hockey |
| Position | Forward |
| International career | 1989–2004; 339 matches |
| Olympics | 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004 |
| Major titles | Asian Games gold (1998); Asia Cup (2003) |
| Awards | Arjuna Award (1995), Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna (1999–2000), Padma Shri (2000) |
Early Life
He was born at Khadki, the cantonment town beside Pune, the fourth of five sons of a Tamil family that had migrated there. His father was a groundsman at the ordnance factory, and the family lived in its staff quarters, in great poverty. The boys played on the soft, muddy ground of the factory with broken sticks tied together with string and discarded balls.
His mother, he has always said, was the making of him: she urged all her sons to play hockey as the way out. An elder brother, Ramesh, who played for India, brought him to Bombay in the mid-1980s and guided him into league hockey there.
International Career
He made his debut for India at the Allwyn Asia Cup in New Delhi in 1989.
Style
He was a forward of blistering pace, able to run at defences with the ball seemingly tied to his stick and to change direction at full speed. He scored, and made, goals out of nothing. Opponents put two men on him as a matter of course.
Tournaments
- **Olympics:** Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004
- **World Cups:** 1990, 1994, 1998 and 2002
- **Asian Games:** 1990, 1994, 1998 and 2002
- **Asian Games 1998, Bangkok:** as captain and the tournament’s leading scorer he led India to the gold medal, its first in the event for thirty-two years
- **Asia Cup 2003, Kuala Lumpur:** India’s first title in the competition
- **Champions Trophy 2002, Cologne:** named player of the tournament
His years in the team were lean ones for Indian hockey at the highest level; India did not win an Olympic or World Cup medal in his time, and at Sydney in 2000 it missed the semi-finals by a goal conceded in the last minutes against Poland.
Clashes with Officials
He spoke his mind about the players’ pay and conditions and about the way the game was run, and paid for it. Weeks after the triumph at Bangkok he and six other senior players were dropped; the federation said they were being “rested”. He was left out and recalled several times in the years that followed.
Clubs
He was the first Indian player in great demand abroad. He played for clubs in England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Bangladesh, and in India for Mahindra and then for Indian Airlines, where he was employed.
Retirement
He played his last match for India at the Athens Olympics in August 2004. He has since managed the national team for a time, run a hockey academy in Mumbai, and campaigned for synthetic pitches for young players. A biography, Forgive Me Amma, by the journalist Sundeep Misra, tells his story.
Honours
- Arjuna Award (1995)
- Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, India’s highest sporting honour, for 1999–2000
- Padma Shri (2000)
Personal Life
He is unmarried and lives in Mumbai. He remains devoted to his mother’s memory and to the Khadki ground where he learnt the game.
Among those who followed him in the Indian team were Dilip Tirkey, his long-time team-mate, and the goalkeeper P. R. Sreejesh.
Featured image: Dhanraj Pillay in action. Photo by Atul Kamle, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
