That’s why the world used to call Dhyanchand a wizard of hockey?
In Holland, people broke their hockey stick and saw if there was a magnet in it. The people of Japan feared that they had applied glue on their sticks.
Some of these things may have been exaggerated, but the extent to which this player may have got his iron in his time can be gauged from the fact that a statue of him has been installed in the Sports Club of Vienna in which His four hands and four sticks are shown in him as if he is a god.
Dhyanchand was a challenge for goalkeepers
INS Dara, who played with him at the 1936 Berlin Olympics and later became the captain of Pakistan, wrote in an issue of World Hockey Magazine, “Dhyan never had high speed but he used to run slow. But he had an amazing ability to identify the gap. His brother Roop Singh in the left flank and his ball distribution in the right flank gave me a great advantage. After entering D, he used to shoot with such quickness and strength that for the best goalkeeper in the world There was no chance. “
Two-time Olympic champion Keshav Dutt said that many people were convinced of his strong wrists and dribbling. “But his real talent was on his mind. He could see the hockey field in the same way that a chess player would look at the chessboard. He would have known without knowing which side of the field his team players and opponents were Are moving.”
Recall the 1986 World Cup football final. Maradona gave a thirty-foot-long pass without looking ahead from a perfectly blind angle, on which Buruchaga scored the winning goal.
The completeness of a player is gauged by the fact that he can master the geometry of the field even by blindfolding.
Keshav Dutt says, “When everyone thought that Dhyanchand was going to take the shot, he would pass the ball. Not because he was not selfish (which he was not) but because the opponents should be surprised at his move. When he gave such a pass to you, it was obvious that you wanted to score it in any case.”
Dhyanchand was unmatched even in old age
During the 1947 tour of East Africa, he turned his face towards his own goal after passing the ball to KD Singh Babu and did not even look towards Babu.
When he was later asked the reason for his strange act, his reply was, “Even if Babu could not score a goal on that pass, he had no right to be in my team.”
Gurubakhsh Singh, captain of the Indian Olympic team in 1968, told me that even in 1959 when Dhyanchand was 54 years old, no player of the Indian hockey team could snatch the ball from him in Buli.
The Indian team lost to Germany 4–1 in a practice match before the 1936 Olympic Games began.
When Germany showed its magic
Dhyan Chand writes in his autobiography ‘Goal’, “I will never forget this defeat as long as I live. This defeat shocks us so much that we could not sleep all night. We decided to play on the Inside Right INS Dara should be immediately called from India to Berlin. “
Dara could reach Berlin only in the semi-final match.
The final match against Germany was to be played on 14 August 1936. But it rained a lot that day.
Hence the match was played the next day i.e. on 15 August. Before the match, manager Pankaj Gupta suddenly took out the Congress flag.
He was saluted by all the players (till that time India had no flag of its own. It was a slave country so it was participating in the Olympic Games under Union Jack.)
40,000 people were present that day at the Hockey Stadium in Berlin to watch the finals.
Among the watchers were the top leaders of the German leadership along with the Maharaja of Baroda and Begum of Bhopal.
Oddly enough, the German players had adopted the technique of playing small passes like India. Till half time India was ahead by just one goal.
After this Dhyan Chand took off his spiked shoes and socks and started playing barefoot. After this, there was a torrent of balls.
Dara later wrote, “After eating six goals, the Germans started playing rough hockey. Their goalkeeper’s hockey meditated so hard on Dhyan Chand’s mouth that he broke his tooth.”
“After returning to the field after treatment, Dhyan Chand instructed the players not to hit any goal. Only German players should be shown how to control the ball.”
“After this, we would repeatedly take the ball to the German D and then pass the ball back. German players could not understand what was happening.”
India beat Germany 8–1 and Dhyan Chand scored three goals in this.
A newspaper Morning Post wrote, “Berlin will remember the Indian team for a long time. The Indian team played such hockey as if they were running on a skating rink. Their stick work overwhelmed the German team.”
Dhyanchand used to dribble?
Ashok Kumar, the son of Dhyanchand and bronze medalist in the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, says that once his team was practising in Munich, he saw that an elderly man was sitting in a wheelchair.
He asked who is Ashok Kumar in this team.
When I was taken to him, he hugged me and began to express his broken language in a sincere manner… Your father was such a great sportsman. He had yellow clippings of the 1936 news in his hand, in which my father’s game was glorified.
Olympian Nandi Singh once told the BBC that there is a big misconception among people that Dhyan Chand used to do a lot of dribbling.
He did not dribble at all. He did not keep the ball with him. As soon as the ball arrived, he passed it to his fellow player.
After returning to India, a funny incident happened with Dhyanchand.
Film actor Prithviraj Kapoor was a fan of Dhyanchand.
Once in a match in Mumbai, he brought famous singer Kundan Lal Sehgal with him.
Listened to 14 songs from KL Sahgal
No goal was scored till half time. Sehgal said that we have heard many names of both brothers.
I wonder if any of you could not score a goal for half the time.
Roop Singh then asked Sehgal that would you tell us as many songs as we scored?
Sehgal agreed. In the second half, both brothers scored 12 goals together.
But before the final whistle was played, Sehgal had left the stadium.
The next day Sehgal sent his car to Dhyan Chand to come to his studio.
But when Dhyan Chand reached there, Sehgal said that his mood for singing the song had been uprooted.
Dhyan Chand was very disappointed that Sehgal only spoiled his time.
But the next day, Sehgal himself reached his car in the place where his team was staying and he sang 14 songs for them. Not only did he sing songs, but he also presented a watch to every player.