Emotional agility is the bedrock of sport excellence. Among the tallest sportsmen who possess it is India’s illustrious goalkeeper PR Sreejesh. He allows himself to explore a range of sentiments. He does not hesitate in revealing them through the game. Shortly before the Olympic Games in Paris, Sreejesh announced that it would be his last international tournament. This meant that Paris would reveal the last save in his Olympic journey that began in London 2012, progressed to Rio 2016, and in Tokyo 2020 (2021), where India rewrote hockey history.
With Ireland, Argentina, Belgium, New Zealand and Australia, waiting to pounce on a squad known for scooping the old habit of building the game over egos and individual stardom, out of the astro turf, Sreejesh’s grandly installed, moving announcement worked its charm. It gave his teammates an added purpose to their Olympic and medal ambition. To followers of Indian hockey, initially, it seemed complex. Dignity demands its own rhythm. Sreejesh wanted to retire on a “high”. It is fortuitous that he will begin his coaching career on that high.
In an intense relationship with the sport extending 24 years, Sreejesh brought to end, at his own will, the sequence of defeat, success, learning from success and applying it to defeat to meet success again. Very few stalwarts can ‘surprise’ the world like Sreejesh. He can ignite detachment from his own journey in sport, over its highs and lows, and puts it to great use. He carried the courage to quit playing before even crossing the ceremonial “whiteline” in Paris. He has revealed the sprouting process of a coaching philosophy truly Indic in nature – within him – even before becoming “coach”.
Hockey India president Dilip Tirkey and secretary-general Bhola Nath Singh have touched the right nerve in offering Sreejesh a mentor role in the junior team. There is no doubt that saving goals was “his job”. He recast that job like an Indian hero would – redefining “sport”, “journey”, “choices” and “excellence” – for ages to come. His retirement does not and should not change anything when it comes to the transformation of his role in India colours. Depending on Sreejesh and keeping him central to hockey and Indian sport after his retirement has perks – both on and off field and beyond hockey.
Sreejesh brought the awareness of ‘zero’ from his experiences in the 2012 London squad. The awareness of being at ‘pit bottom’ from higher ranks in years between 2012, 2021 and subsequently 2024, gave Sreejesh his mettle and “character”. In his latest statement, he has said that he would like to coach juniors like cricketer and inspiration Rahul Dravid. The statement is intangible wealth.
Sreejesh is often, endearingly, described as “the wall” for his brilliance as a shot-stopper by the media, hockey-spectators, and fans. The title would come across as befitting to many. It, however, would always fall severely short in description, just as it did and has for renowned cricketer Rahul Dravid. Sreejesh, like Dravid, is not just the “wall”. Between London 2012 and Paris 2024, Sreejesh cemented his place as the pillar, hinge, and the ground, in a fluid fulfilment of his role. His office day at major tournaments was not only about wasping down and thudding away the fiery flicks and devious deflections that flew towards his gurgling pupils. His emotional brawniness, craft and the elite repertoire in goalkeeping, was resting the mobility, movement and manoeuvres of transformation of the squad between 2012 and 2017, when he sprang back into action after spirit-daunting injuries.
To put the time length of his contribution in perspective, when Sreejesh made his India debut, among members of the squad that went to Paris 2024, Hardik Singh was 8, Rajkumar Pal, 8, Abhishek 7, Amit Rohidas was 11, Lalit Upadhyay, 13, and Mandeep Singh, 11. On the other hand, D’Souza, Dilip Tirkey, Shivendra Singh, Sardar Singh, Sandeep Singh and Arjun Halappa, among others, were unfolding their best fervour into the game. He will be coaching juniors who belong to his children’s generation – roughly. “Players can influence other players. Definitely, the player who has the ball is the captain. Being there as a goalkeeper and playing that role is important to me,” he told this writer in December 2018.
In Paris, the sequence of events was dramatic. Perhaps, before travelling to Paris, Sreejesh pre-wrote it in his mind and family conversations, several times over. To think of the mental strengths, Sreejesh is made of, it becomes necessary to recall that he literally packed all the required props in his suitcase to Paris to announce his retirement after Paris 2024 to the world. He carried the first jersey he wore as a child in 2000 and flaunted his last one. In a post on social media, he mentioned GV Raja Sports School with a hashtag — displaying the humble Indian address where the seed of excellence spurted 24 years ago.
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The changing colour of hockey’s victory-spectatorship relationship litmus in Sreejesh’s presence in the men’s squad would see Odisha turning into a powerful stage for world-class clashes involving the finest. He is cultural glue, a unifier.
Stalwarts stitch their own reverie of retribution by turning past wounds into victories. In Paris, India’s win against Great Britain in the quarter final match and against Australia was proof of character
that matures at the training camps and leaves its flavour and fragrance in matches that define Indian ‘character’. Sreejesh, along with a stellar display of mental and physical resilience from the squad — with and without defender Amit Rohidas — would craft a win against Great Britain to remember for decades. Harmanpreet’s side would turn the Paris battlefield more intense.
The match was high quality competitiveness and such a genius-churner that if US gymnast Simone Biles watched Harmanpreet Singh, Sukhjeet Singh, Lalit Kumar Upadhyay and Raj Kumar Pal converting their chances and Sreejesh saving Philip Roper’s attempt in this match, she would perhaps carry memories to beat those troubling twisties – forever.
Paris 2024 was not about Sreejesh alone. The entire squad was willing to upgrade the colour of the medal and step levels up on the podium. What transpired after the announcement? A report on the FIH website (India legend Sreejesh aims to finish stellar career on a high note fih.hockey) mentions that the team members wanted to “win it for him”.
In emotional terms, this is what happened: the “family man” who wanted his family at home in Ernakulam to get more and the most of him after Paris, ended up arousing an emotion for himself in his hockey family right before their most important contest of the year. The family is only getting bigger.
Keeping his own exit as a performance marker had its own perks. Keeping ‘all of’ Sreejesh as central to the idea of a goalkeeper would have its perks as seen in India’s campaign from the pool to podium.
Former goalkeeper Adrian D’Souza, Sreejesh’s friend, ‘brother’ and mentor, feels that Sreejesh could have, easily, continued to perform till and at Los Angeles 2028. So, when Sreejesh shared the news with him, D’Souza’s response was a mix of surprise and respect for his friend’s decision. D’Souza says, “He made this decision even before the tournament began, announced the decision, played, and even won the bronze. It shows the strengths he is made of.” D’Souza is thrilled about something else. He adds, “There were several secrets Sreejesh revealed in Paris. These were moves he would use in the beginning of his career. Among them were the excellent sliding saves which he surprised the opponents with. He was brilliant in Paris.”
At times in Indian hockey, more painful than defeat would be watching the Indian squad play under its own potential. By defeating Australia 3-2 in the pool encounter, the first time in 52 years after Munich 1972, the Indian squad helped erase those memories. The squad in his presence compelled Australia to flip from the role of ‘nemesis’ — to a uniquely fresh representation of an agent provocateur of a historic breakthrough.
Sreejesh has internalised the role of ‘goalkeeper’. At times when his errors would reflect in digits on the scoreboard, he would feel its weight and let it out, sometimes being a little harsh to himself. He would let it out by turning the goalkeeper in him in to the sportsman in him. He would not hesitate in telling himself and others that he fell short. A glimpse of it returned on his face when India lost to Germany in the semi-final match in Paris.
To say that he doesn’t chase stardom would be unfair because he is stardom itself. “How outside his brilliance as a goalkeeper,” you may ask. In his simplicity despite the festival of a range of emotions he is; in the expression of gratitude to his equipment, in personifying the goal post, in giving it human pronouns. In redefining ‘listening’ when it comes to his coaches and teammates, and most importantly, to himself. In a cricket-crazy nation, he is not known for the cars he owns or vacations he takes. Instead, he wears the “mundu” and medal to his Eiffel Tower moment. He takes his cultural representation seriously and gracefully.
Sreejesh is a potential team leader who has all essential ingredients to channelise Olympians for enriching Khelo India, school and university participation across core disciplines. Within the realm of hockey, he can provide Hockey India intervention-oriented motivation in the development and progress of the men and women squads.
Sreejesh can play a pivotal role not only in galvanising spectatorship and audience for hockey in states that are not perceived as “hubs”, but can also give great results as an ambassador for deepening sport as culture — pan India.
Irreplaceable is rare, but not impossible to replace. It is time to galvanise Indian sport with his emotional agility, character and commitment to sport, sporting excellence, and India by throwing open the turf to him as changemaker, an Indic leader and catalyst outside of the jersey numbered 16.
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