“Oye, Harman fall back into you position! Machaaa, Varun, hold your lines! Get back! Get back! All you guys have grown up too old! Get back!”
When PR Sreejesh initially arrived at the Indian camp, he knew no Hindi. “My predicament was like a puppy stranded on a temple ground [on a festival day],” he laughs. “I didn’t know the language, I didn’t have any friends, and the cuisine was not to my liking. All of the coaches spoke in Hindi…”
The fact that he was a goalie rescued him. “Goalkeeping is an individual sport inside hockey,” he tells ESPN in a long, easygoing interview between bouts at the Commonwealth Games. “I didn’t have to change or compromise with anybody else, and that’s the only reason I lived. Otherwise, I’d have packed my belongings and left long ago.”
He survived and then flourished.
PR Sreejesh is one of the finest goalkeepers Indian hockey has ever seen, two decades after that first junior camp. His trophy cabinet may not be as full as that of some of his predecessors, but that reflects the era in which he debuted (“zero expectations from me, or anyone”). Sreejesh has had a very genuine, very direct effect on earning the Olympic bronze, Asian Games gold (and bronze), CWG silver, and several Champions Trophy medals he possesses.
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He is now the team’s senior member. He is no longer lost, and he understands Hindi. He is the only voice you will hear at any India match. Sreejesh and his crude comments will be heard whether there are 100 or 10,000 people in the stands. Even when he isn’t playing, he stands at the sidelines railings and screams orders. Krishan Pathak, the second-choice keeper, occasionally hears his boss barking from the sidelines and promptly begins imitating such comments.
“Run back, you *insert choice expletive* slowpokes!”
To be a goalie, you must be a bit different. No fear, a little flare, and being OK with not being the centre of attention after scoring the game-winning goal.
However, Sreejesh became a keeper because he “didn’t want to run.” It’s spoken with deadpan severity before erupting into a big grin. “When I first arrived at the hostel and began playing hockey, our warm-up consisted of 5-6 rounds. After that, there was exercise, sprints, agility [training], stick and ball exercises… if you do all of this, you will die. I had no sporting history, so all I saw was goalkeepers running 1-2 circles, tying their pads, standing in a corner, and kicking the ball a little. So my decision was based solely on the fact that I did not want to run. There is nothing else.”
Sreejesh’s early hockey years were spent convincing everyone around him that he’d chosen the right decision. Kerala has a lot of sports, but not hockey, thus his parents were adamantly opposed to it. His volleyball-playing cousins told him, with a “typical Malayalee attitude,” that if he took up hockey, there would be no employment available (in government sectors).
They had no idea that all he sought was grace marks from the education department if he made the state squad. And he’d estimated that the hockey team would be the simplest to join. And required the least amount of running.
He was alone in his decision, yet he stayed firm in it. That, he says, has always been his greatest asset.
The life of a goalie may be hazardous. Is he terrified when the ball is thrown at him? “Occasionally, in training, if someone smashes it from too near… I yell at him, screaming you may harm me!”
But that is only in practice; come game time, “I’m not worried about getting hit or how quickly the ball is coming at me. The only thing on my mind is that I need to save the ball. Our goal shifts away from self-preservation.”
The only thinking after avoiding injury is, “I don’t want to allow a goal.”
“Whether I am struck, whether it hits my helmet or my body, or whether it bruises me… that worry never comes up.”
“I often talk to my [goalkeeping] pad — it’s ridiculous and silly, I know, but it’s how I — all that anger and negativity needs to be aired out, and this is how I do it.” PR Sreejesh said once.
The work of a goalie is thankless. Make a save, and you’ve done your job. Give up a goal, and your team suffers. There are no more save attempts and no more chances for repentance. It can have a devastating psychological impact.
“I know how to manage it now because I’ve had so much experience. However, when you set a goal, the first thing that comes to mind is the repercussions. We get quite concerned about the outcome… ‘Aiyyo, I gave up a goal. What will people think, what will the coach say, will my teammates yell at me?’ When you think like that, you [always] give up the next goal. It starts a chain reaction.”
You’ve seen it happen before, one error leading to another, culminating in catastrophic defeats.
“As a goalkeeper, you must be there, whether it is after a save or after a surrender. All of this should wash over a goalie like water off a duck’s back. The water never sticks; no matter how much you pour, it will drain off. You should develop into someone like that. If you save one, leave it right away. Then return your attention to the current moment. Give up a goal? Ignore it right away.”
This is when the never-ending shouting comes in. “You may stay in the moment by conversing with players ahead of you, helping them, and discussing mistakes with them. When you do this, you forget about the problem that just occurred.”
That’s why, even when he’s not playing, he talks to everyone. Coach, player, ballboy, and videographer It’s his technique of staying alert for the length of the game. He yells at everyone and anything on the field, yet he’s pals with everyone off it. “Whenever any juniors come in, I try to talk to them more, include them in the team, try to understand what challenges they’re having, and tell them if they’re making mistakes.”
“I’m not worried about getting hit or how quickly the ball is coming at me. The only thing on my mind is that I need to save the ball.” Said by PR Sreejesh.
“I’ve been through a lot, and all of these are things I yearned for: that some senior would talk to me, care for me a little, or advise me. Whatever I couldn’t receive, I’m trying to give to my juniors.”
He admits he yells a lot in training as well. “According to the military, the more sweat we pour out in training, the less blood you will bleed in battle… A child might be damaged or disturbed rapidly if a fan insults them during a game.” That is something he does not want to happen. Train (much) harder than you play.
But what happens when the lights go out, after everyone has gone home, after everything has settled down… do thoughts of the match resurface?
“It is dependent on the circumstances. Some days, when you make great saves, you don’t want to think about it. But occasionally, after making a number of fantastic saves and making one mistake in between, that error comes back to you like a gag reflex when you consume food. ‘Oh, here is what I did, and this is what I should have done,’ you think. Then you try to come up with a response… ‘Okay, this is what I should have done in this scenario.’ That won’t happen again after you obtain that response.”
“We have the option to converse with ourselves. There are moments when we have a lot of questions we want to ask ourselves. There will be many answers that we desire to give ourselves. When you sit with a group of individuals and start talking to them, they start offering you their opinions… sometimes ideas we didn’t want to hear, and we can’t digest them. In such a case, I try to stay to myself…”
“Once I complete talking and get that answer, my problem is solved.”
And he’ll keep doing it for as long as he can. The child who only wanted a Kerala shirt to obtain 60 grace points is now a true icon in the India jersey. And he’s not finished yet.
“In any case, what I don’t have [in terms of medals] is more [than what I do]. So [obtaining them] is unquestionably my motivation.”
