The Tendulkar of field hockey

The called him the Bradman of hockey, when India ruled the hockey world and was unbeaten at the Olympic Games from 1928 to 1956. Major Dhyan Chand was a wizard and it is said that Adolf Hitler offered to buy his hockey stick at the Berlin Olympics in 1936. Incidentally India thrashed the German national team in the final, witnessed by the Fuhrer.

The Germans were expecting an easy win, not because they had a better team but simply because they considered themselves to be racially superior to the Indian's.Apparently Adolf Hitler left the stadium in the midst of his team getting slaughtered.On the morning of the final, the entire team was nervous since they had been defeated the last time they had faced Germany. In the locker room, a Congress tricolour was produced. Reverently the team saluted it, prayed and marched onto the field. The German team was successful in restricting the India side to a single goal until the first interval. After the interval, the Indian team launched an all-out attack, easily defeating Germany 8-1, incidentally the only goal scored against India in that Olympic tournament. At the end of the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics which India won the Gold Medal a reporter said: 'This is not a game of hockey, but magic. Dhyan Chand is in fact the magician of hockey'. India was a nation fighting for her independence and desperately searched for heroes, that were not brushed aside as mythical. The Indian team's feat in Germany must stand out as a landmark event in our history where a nation believed that the white man could be beaten at his game on his turf. Dhyan Chand scored 400 goals in his international career.Nobody has come even within sniffing distance. His stick was tested in many countries, to check if it concealed a strange magnet, as that was Dhyan Chand's superb ball control and wizardry. In celebrating Sachin Tendulkar, let's not forget great sportsmen of the past.I understand that in a world that lives in the fast forward mode, the past is fuzzy and forgettable.Nations forget their history at their peril. Call him the Tendulkar of hockey, but give the man his due.Major Dhyan Chand was a torch bearer of Indian sport and Indian's for that matter when we were desperately seeking heroes.