Sports People in Profile; Major Dhyan Chand
Written by; Tao MacLeod
Major Dhyan Chand has an iconic status within the sport of field hockey. He was nicknamed the ‘Hockey Wizard’ and ‘The Magician’ during his playing days due to his stick skills and close ball control, he was the superstar of the great Indian national teams of the 1920s and 1930s that were renowned for their expressive flair and attacking adroitness. Born Dhyan Singh Bais in August 1905, in Allahabad, United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, in what was then British India, his home region is now called Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh. Chand, the surname that he is now known by means moon in the Hindu language. His friends and team mates called him this due to his penchant for training at night, in the moonlight.
He enlisted in the 1st Brahmans regiment of the British Indian Army in 1922, having followed his father into soldering who had also joined up as a younger man. Initially, Chand was a sepoy, the equivalent of a private soldier, or infantryman. Apparently, he only started playing the sport whilst in the military, having not played much, if any hockey at all during his childhood. This wouldn’t necessarily have been unheard of, as the British Army was one of the means by which British sport was taken around the world. It was here that he got the chance to go on an overseas hockey tour to New Zealand in 1926.
You may also be interested in further information (outside websites)…
- India’s First International Match: Indian Army Team Tour to New Zealand, 1926 (The Hockey Museum website)
- The Indian Army hockey tour of New Zealand 1926, written by Diljit Singh Bahra
Whilst down under, the British Indian Army played a total of 21 matches, winning 18 of them. As it was a military team, the squad included four players who hailed from Britain. This quartet were the only officers in the 17 strong team and would have acted as the leadership of the group. The three matches against the Kiwi national team (who had only previously played against neighbouring Australia) finished evenly, with a win, loss and a draw. The Indians scored a total of 390 goals, conceding just 37. According to the Hockey Museum, the tour itself represented the first ever international series for India, having never played foreign opposition before. The first of the three matches against New Zealand was a 5 – 2 win for the tourists. Chand himself got a hat trick, whist playing at centre forward, as well as the opening goal, meaning that he is the scorer of his country’s first ever international goal. Upon his return Dhyan Chand was promoted to a lance naik, the equivalent of a lance corporal, in what had become by this point the 14th Punjab Regiment.
The forward’s attacking prowess was starting to turn heads. In 1928 hockey was included in the Summer Olympic Games for only the third time, with previous events being held in London 1908 and Antwerp 1920. Hosted in the Dutch Capital of Amsterdam, the 1928 tournament represented the first time that India entered a hockey team for an Olympiad. The Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) formed just a few years earlier in 1925, decided upon having an inter-provincial tournament to help decide upon a squad to take to the Netherlands. In total five teams participated in the national competition; Punjab, Bengal, Rajputana, United Provinces (UP) and Central Provinces. With the Army not participating Dhyan Chand was able to participate for the region in which he had been born, the United Provinces. Again, he dazzled as a centre-forward. An article on the Olympic Games website, entitled ‘Dhyan Chand: The hockey wizard who had the world on his stick’, described his performance as thus,
“The hockey magician ensured that he made the most of the opportunity. Dhyan Chand not only made a case for himself in the Indian hockey team but also entertained the selectors and the spectators with his quality ball control and darting runs that had the opposition defence constantly in trouble.”
You may also be interested in further information (outside websites)…
Dhyan Chand easily made selection for the travelling squad, due to his fine performances and partnership with inside-right forward George Marthins at the inter-provincials. A total of nine different national teams entered the 1928 Olympics. The format of the tournament split the sides between two groups in the first round. India was placed in the larger Group A, consisting of five teams, instead of the four on the other side of the draw. Their first game was against Austria, with the Asians running out six nil winners. Chand got four of these goals himself. India went undefeated in the first round and topped the group. In these days there were no quarter, or semi finals. As group winners they qualified straight to the Gold Medal Match against the hosts. The Indians duly got the win over the Dutch, taking home their first ever Olympic medal of any colour. It was a three nil win, with Chand getting two of the goals and his attacking colleague George Marthins scoring the third. Chand also won the top goalscoring award for the competition.
This represented the beginning of a period of domination over men’s international hockey. Throughout the proceeding few decades, the Indian men’s team won eight Olympic gold medals. This included six in a row, between 1928 and 1956. In fact they only lost the final in 1960 to newly created neighbours Pakistan following partition of the two countries. Chand was one of the early leaders of this grand success. Not only was he involved in victories at the 1928, 1932 and 1936 Olympics, as well as the 1934 Western Asiatic Games, but he went on to captain the national team during this period. Although it was for a tour of New Zealand, his selection as skipper showed his increased status within the squad. As the leading centre forward in the country he had become one of the main focal points for attack for the team.
The 1936 Olympic final itself is worthy of note, if only because of the figurative bloody nose the Indians gave to the German Government’s attempts at sports-washing during the Berlin Games. Hitler and the incumbent NAZI Party had been looking to use the eleventh Olympiad as a method to promote their white supremacist Aryan racial ideology. Much has been made about Jesse Owens taking four gold medals across different track and field events and rightly so. Less has been made of the Indian hockey team thrashing the Germans by eight goals to one in the Grande Finale. Again, Chand got himself on the scoresheet, bagging himself hat trick in the process. In fact India were so dominant throughout the tournament (having put ten past the French in the semi-final) that the solitary German goal represented their only defensive breach during the entire sporting festival. By winning gold in Berlin in 1936, India helped to show that hockey was emerging as a truly global sport, of which we still see today.
The Indians have become a stalwart of elite level competitions and are the most successful team in the history of men’s hockey. The Asian powerhouse has won more medals than any other national team, in the history of the Summer Olympics hockey tournament. In addition to the previously mentioned eight gold medals their total of 13 includes four bronze and a silver. Additionally India has won the Asian Games four times between 1966 and 2022, as well as the World Cup in 1975. All of this has been done with skill and panache which has made them synonymous with an exciting and attacking style of play. This ethos of theirs, combined with the level of success they have enjoyed over the years puts them on a par with the Brazilian men’s football Seleção, or the New Zealand All Blacks rugby side in terms of iconic sports teams.
Dhyan Chand, who eventually rose to the rank of Major in the independent Indian Army, became the main icon of the squad in the early days. He died in December of 1979, aged 74. However, his name lives on as a metaphor for the exhilarating, edge of the seat brand of hockey that his country still looks to play. A couple of awards have been named inches honour. The Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award is the highest sporting annual award given to an Indian sportsperson and is organised by the national government. The Major Dhyan Chand Award is a sporting lifetime achievement accolade in the Republic of India. Additionally, in 2002 the national hockey arena in the capital city New Delhi was renamed the Major Dhyan Chand Stadium, where the 2010 World Cup was also played, as well as the 2010 Commonwealth Games tournament. In 1995, on the 90th anniversary of his birthday, a nine foot statue was unveiled there for all to see. On the same day ever since the Indian’s have celebrated their National Sports Day as a tribute to the man. Major Dhyan Chand remains a legend of hockey.
