Parattu Raveendran Sreejesh (born 8 May 1988) is an Indian former field hockey goalkeeper and captain of the national team. In an international career of eighteen years he won two Olympic bronze medals, at Tokyo in 2021 and Paris in 2024, and two Asian Games gold medals, and was three times named the world’s best goalkeeper. His saves in the dying seconds at Tokyo ended India’s forty-one-year wait for an Olympic hockey medal. He retired after the Paris Games.
Quick Facts
| Full name | Parattu Raveendran Sreejesh |
| Born | 8 May 1988, Kizhakkambalam, Ernakulam district, Kerala |
| Age | 38 |
| Sport | Field hockey |
| Position | Goalkeeper |
| International career | 2006–2024; 336 matches |
| Olympics | 2012, 2016, 2020, 2024 |
| Major medals | Olympic bronze (2020, 2024); Asian Games gold (2014, 2022) |
| Awards | Arjuna Award (2015), Padma Shri (2017), Khel Ratna (2021), Padma Bhushan (2025) |
| Spouse | Aneeshya |
| Children | 2 |
Early Life
He was born in a village near Kochi into a family of farmers. Kerala has little tradition of hockey. As a boy he was a sprinter and then a long jumper and volleyball player. At twelve he won a place at the state sports school in Thiruvananthapuram, where a coach suggested that he try goalkeeping.
His father, the story goes, sold the family’s cow to buy him a set of goalkeeper’s pads.
Rise
He played for the Indian junior team and made his senior debut at the South Asian Games in Colombo in 2006. For five years he was a reserve. His chance came in the final of the Asian Champions Trophy in 2011, against Pakistan, when he saved two penalty strokes in the shoot-out. He was first choice from then on.
Career
- **Asian Games 2014, Incheon:** in the final against Pakistan he saved two strokes in the shoot-out to give India the gold medal and a place at the Olympics
- **Rio Olympics 2016:** he captained the team, which reached the quarter-finals
- **Tokyo Olympics 2020:** in the bronze-medal match against Germany, held in August 2021, India led 5–4 when Germany won a penalty corner with six seconds left. He saved it. It was India’s first Olympic hockey medal since 1980.
- **Asian Games 2022, Hangzhou:** gold
- **Paris Olympics 2024:** in the quarter-final against Great Britain India played more than forty minutes with ten men; he made a string of saves and then won the shoot-out. India took the bronze, beating Spain.
He had announced before the Games that Paris would be his last tournament. After the final whistle his team-mates carried him round the pitch.
Style
He was a big, agile goalkeeper, expert at reading penalty corners and at the one-on-one duel of the shoot-out, and a constant talker who organised the defence in front of him. He kept goal behind several generations of defenders.
Honours
- Goalkeeper of the Year of the International Hockey Federation in 2021, 2022 and 2024
- World Games Athlete of the Year for 2021, the first Indian man to win it
- Khel Ratna (2021), Padma Shri (2017) and Padma Bhushan (2025)
- Hockey India retired the number 16 jersey he wore
Coaching
In late 2024 he was appointed head coach of the Indian junior men’s team, which won the Junior Asia Cup under him. His contract ran to the end of 2025 and was not renewed, and in 2026 he criticised the federation publicly for preferring a foreign coach; Hockey India rejected the claim.
Personal Life
He is married to Aneeshya, a former long jumper and an Ayurvedic doctor whom he met at the sports school; they have a daughter and a son. A road in his village is named after him. He is employed by the Kerala government’s education department.
An earlier star of Indian hockey was Dhanraj Pillay; the president of Hockey India during his last playing years was Dilip Tirkey.
Featured image: P. R. Sreejesh with his Paris Olympics bronze medal, August 2024. Photo by the Prime Minister’s Office, licensed under Government Open Data License – India, via Wikimedia Commons.