From playing hockey with bamboo sticks to representing India, Shailanand Lakra has come a long way

To get his prize – tender coconuts – little Shailanand Lakra used to pick his handmade hockey sticks made of bamboo shoots and play against his senior schoolmates in Kalijapathar village, Sundargarh district, Orissa. He played football and cricket too but hockey, perhaps, was in his genes as his father was a hockey player too. And, it’s the game that he grew up with.

At 18 – captained by one of his hockey heroes, Sardar Singh – Shailanand is now in Ipoh, Malaysia, to represent his country at the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup. He’s eager and excited.

He’s also fast.

“During practice, no one can compete with him in hundred metres sprint,” his coach at the SAIL Hockey Academy in Rourkela, Peter Tirkey, had told The Telegraph when his name was included in the Indian squad.

“He joined us in 2015 and in 2017, he got into the junior team and played the Sultan of Johor Cup held in Malaysia,” Tirkey added. “From the beginning, he played as a forward because he is extremely fast with or without the ball.”

Morning and evening Lakra would practice at the academy, learning the basics of passing and dribbling, playing in structures and a few rules he didn’t know about when playing with makeshift sticks back home. But Tirkey ingrained in the youngster the primacy of being fit.

“Peter Tirkey told me that fitness is everything. If you aren’t fit, you are zero,” Shailanand told The Field. “You can improve your dodging, tackling and striking. But if you aren’t fit, then, everything else doesn’t matter. So, that’s something he taught me.”

Hitherto he hasn’t charted his life, he’s gone wherever it has taken him.

Lucky break

With the modest means his father earned as a daily wage worker in construction sites, Shailanand’s opportunities were limited. After failing his 10th standard board exams, he wasn’t sure of what to do next. He was reminded of an ageing father and a younger sister. When he saw the other kids from his neighbourhood join a christian congregation that provided free education, he went with them. If he’d continued there, he would have become a priest though.

A friend, then, informed him about the trials for SAIL Hockey Academy in Rourkela. “I went there a week ago, practised for the trials. But I didn’t get through,” he says. “Then, I was called again when a few boys, who got selected, didn’t take up the offer.”

From the SAIL academy, Shailanand went on to play in the Indian junior team. He was part of the squad that finished third in the Sultan of Johor Cup last October (including a 22-0 win over the USA).

Striving for consistency

His India junior team coach Jude Felix also highlights Shailanand’s speed. “He’s smooth in his running. He looks slow, but he accelerates well. His ball control and speed are something we haven’t seen in many young players of this era. He combines speed, skill and body movements,” he tells The Field.

The youngster, however, needs to be consistent with his good performances, Felix says. “But he’s still young and we are working on him so he can be developed into a good forward. He’s very effective.”

The call for the senior team came this year. His parents were happy to see his name in the newspapers. But Shailanand was a little anxious.

“I was really scared before joining the senior team. I thought I’d be yelled at for making mistakes. But now I realise only through mistakes you learn because even the big players here make mistakes and nobody is perfect. So, that’s reduced my pressure.”

Without the fear of mistakes, the teenager’s ready to take on some of the best players in the world at the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup beginning this Saturday.