Jnr hockey skipper Preeti recalls finding her feet

Winning the women’s Junior Asia Cup at Kakamigahara, Japan on June 11 was the biggest moment of Preeti’s life. In seven previous editions, India had not won the title while a junior World Cup berth awaited the winners.

As skipper, Preeti delivered under pressure, demonstrating how far she had come since the daughter of a humble mason took up hockey only because she saw young girls training at an academy near home in Sonipat get new clothes and shoes.

“I used to see other girls go and play in an academy. They would return with new shoes, clothes, hockey sticks and balls. I didn’t know much about the game, I just felt if I played, I’ll also get these things,” says the defender, who joined the academy run by former India skipper Pritam Rani Siwach as an 11-year-old.

But two years later, her hockey dreams were almost dashed. A broken ankle during training was plastered alright, but perhaps due to ignorance, there was negligence and the foot got infected. “The foot started to rot, the skin started coming off, the bone was finished,” Preeti recalls. “I had surgery and doctors inserted a rod. It was extremely painful. I could not get off the bed for months.”

She could not play for 18 months. The doctors didn’t expect her to return to playing, and Preeti was advised to instead focus on studies. “Tab se mujh me ye zid aa gai ki mujhe hockey khelni hai (Since then I became adamant about playing hockey). It was too long a gap, but I wanted to play. When I started to train again, my leg wasn’t perfect. It used to hurt, but I would not tell my family members as they would ask me to rest and not play. I hid my pain, suffered silently to play.”

Preeti gradually regained rhythm. She played in two sub-junior nationals for Haryana, helping her team win the 2018 junior nationals in Bhopal. Impressed with her defensive skills, Preeti was selected for the junior national camp, and she has been based there since. She made her junior India debut in May 2019 during a four-nation invitational tournament in Dublin.

“Preeti's family was very poor. I tried to provide whatever help I could and even gave her father some work to do. She was a very quiet child but what stood out was that she was very hard working and disciplined," says Pritam.

Pritam's academy trains around 200 underprivileged girls from rural areas, giving hockey equipment and showing them the route to a better life through the game. Three of her proteges – Neha Goyal, Nisha Warsi and Sharmila Devi – are in the senior India team.

“There are students who would go home after the training session, but Preeti would stay back and do extra work. There were never any short cuts with her,” said Pritam, who received the government’s Dronacharya award for coaching excellence in 2021.

Preeti’s parents were doubly happy last year after she landed a job with Railways.

“Despite financial difficulties, my family always supported my dreams. There were times when my father had no work. There was a lot of tension over running our house then. I’m really indebted to them; despite hardships, my father always encouraged me to play and always got me what I wanted. Pritam ma’am also supported a lot. She was my on-field mother who took care of every small detail from food to clothes."

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