CHENNAI: Somtime in 2017, after PR Sreejesh suffered a potentially career-ending ACL injury, the keeper turned to sports autobiographies. He made sure he carried a few of those books wherever he went. That specific genre used to occupy a significant part of his almirah at home. If and when Sreejesh decides its time to write his story (his playing career has two more games to run), that autobiography will occupy its own pride of place in the cupboards and libraries up and down the country for people to read and get inspired. On Sunday, with the clock ticking down on one of India's greatest of all time, the 36-year-old was not just inspirational or outstanding. He was something else; an ethereal figure, a light from up above.
For the best part of two decades, Parattu Raveendran Sreejesh — some performances demand you use the athlete's full name to do it proper justice carried Indian hockey on his shoulders. Peaks and troughs. Mind-melting disappointments and rousing renditions. A one-man playing some of the greatest hits in a sea of mediocrity.
His piece de resistance, it appeared, had come in 2021. With seconds left on the clock, he saved a Germany penalty corner to retain a narrow India lead in the bronze medal match. That save gave India its first Olympic medal in 41 years. Three years later, the custodian has multiple moments to match that save. A couple of them came either side of full-time in an engrossing, gripping quarterfinal against Great Britain.
The second of those moments was the second and final time India won this feisty last eight clash. Just after the custodian saved from Phil Roper, a smart stop where he raised his big blue glove to parry the goal-bound effort wide, Sreejesh, and there's no other way to phrase this, bounced his bum on the blue turf a couple of times. Maybe call it 'The Sreejesh Bumboline' or 'The Sreejesh Buttattack'. An alpha move, his way of telling the opposition they were losing this match. Football goalkeepers have willingly engaged in shenanigans over the years to put off the opposition and this was Sreejesh doing a crossover.
The opponents were doing something similar. A support staff had smuggled an iPad next to their keeper, Ollie Payne. The gadget perhaps gave an idea to Payne some of the favoured moves of the Indian players in the shoot-out. The umpire was having none of it and the iPad was removed from the field. Without the iPad, Payne committed too early and Rajkumar Pal dinked the ball to send the Indians into raptures. One of the greatest defensive performances in the long history of Indian hockey has been achieved (Hockey India has since lodged a complaint about the iPad).
Cue delirium. Players ran wherever their legs took them. Sreejesh was down. Manpreet Singh was next to him. Coach Craig Fulton, who had to stay back in South Africa as his wife was wheeled into emergency surgery for a rogue appendix just before the team was picked in late June, was in there somewhere. There may also have been a tear or two shed. Sports, eh? Making adults cry tears of happiness since time immemorial.
Sports can also make you do crazy things. Which is what Sreejesh did for the vast majority of the match. Riding on adrenaline and not much else, he led from the back as India put up a herculean shift after being reduced to 10 men in the 17th minute.
Whenever Great Britain thought they had a chance, Sreejesh was equal to it. A full length dive here to divert the ball away from a forward running full pelt with an outstretched stick. Parrying a goal-bound effort away there. Kicking the ball away before an opposition stick at other times. Playing the opponent and the angle on the odd occasions. Shouting at his defenders when all else failed. Like when he saved from Morton with three minutes and change remaining on the clock. Morton thought he had scored but a strong right hand from the keeper sent it into the stands.
It was a Sreejesh masterclass from start to finish. Just before the start of the shoot-out, he was hit by an epiphany. "I thought this can be my last match or I can have two more." Now, he will have two more. Through sheer force of will, some theatrics, backing himself in a mano a mano battle and emerging from the depths of hell to script an unlikely win.
That, in essence, would be the apt summary of his autobiography.
