Bengaluru: Rahul Dravid, once a hockey midfielder, famously put away the stick and stuck to weaving magic with the willow. Almost four decades later, with a stick in hand, he can still trap a ball with precision and position a pass well too. The former India captain and coach, who played in the same school team– St. Joseph’s Boys High School– as former international hockey players Anil Aldrin and Sandeep Somesh, counts hockey as one of his favourite sports. Speaking at the opening of the inter-college hockey tournament commemorating the platinum jubilee of his alma mater, St Joseph’s College of Commerce (SJCC), here on Friday, Dravid reminisced about his days on the hockey field.“I played a lot of hockey in school. I was fortunate to play with people like Anil Aldrin and Sandeep Somesh for two reasons. Firstly, we were a strong team and won tournaments like Centenary Shield and the Father Eric Vaz inter-school tournaments because of these two guys. Also, it was a good lesson for me because when I watched them play or played with them, I realised that I was better off playing cricket,” Dravid joked.Incidentally, Dravid and Somesh both played as midfielders, while 1996 Atlanta Olympian Aldrin was a defender. The 53-year-old Dravid said hockey had played an important role in his formative years. “I loved playing hockey. It was a great team sport. India has such an incredible history, legacy and tradition in hockey,” he said.
Dravid also praised the resurgence of Indian hockey after the men’s team secured back-to-back Olympic bronze medals in Paris and Tokyo. “We haven’t been able to reach the heights and standards that we had in the past, but I’m glad we have been quite successful in recent times. There is a revival of hockey,” he observed.The two-day five-a-side inter-college hockey tournament, which has attracted 17 teams, has been organised by SJCC’s Old Students’ Association (OSA) and Yes For Hockey. The competition is timely for the revival of collegiate hockey, which has declined over the years.Lauding the efforts of OSA, Dravid said, “They’ve been very passionate about trying to revive hockey and get more youngsters to play it, which is really important because it’s such a phenomenal sport to be a part of. I think it’s only going to keep getting better.”
