Dhanraj Pillai the former field hockey captain is India’s pride and joy; he guided India to achieve the first gold medal at 1998 Asiad in 32 years. He was the top scorer by scoring ten goals in that event. Dhanraj Pillai also holds the record of the highest goal scorer for India. It is estimated as about 130 to 170 goals, as the Indian Hockey Federation does not hold any statistics for the goals scored by him. Hockey legend Dhanraj Pillai was born as a fourth son to Tamil parents Nagalingam Pillai and Andanamma on 16th July 1968 at Khadki in Maharashtra.
Dhanraj Pillai’s father was a grounds man in the Ordinance Factory staff colony, the place where Dhanraj learnt to play field hockey with his brothers and friends. Mohammed Shahid the Pakistan’s legend hockey player was his role model. Ramesh his elder brother helped him to develop as a striker. Later Dhanraj was coached by Joaquim Carvalho when he joined Mahindra and Mahindra. In the year 1989 he represented India as a debutant international hockey player in the Allwyn Asia Cup played at New Delhi. In his career Dhanraj Pillai played 339 international hockey matches starting from the year 1989 to 2004.
Although Dhanraj is not a violent player he is the star player in the Indian hockey team because of his ability to win matches in a split of a second. Though he was a star player he was easily accessible to his junior players. He played as a center forward player for the Indian hockey team. Dhanraj Pillai holds the creditable record of only player to have played in four Olympics, four World Cups, four Champion trophies and four Asian Games. It was under his captaincy Indian hockey team won 1998 Asiad Games and 2003 Asia Cup. He also represented as the only Indian hockey player in the world eleven team of the World Cup in 1994 at Sydney. Dhanraj also participated in many foreign clubs such as Selangor Kuala Lampur, Indian Gymkhana London, and Stuggart Kicker Stuggart etc.
India’s supreme sporting award the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna was awarded to Dhanraj Pillai for the year 1999-2000. In the year 2000 he also received the civilian award Padma Shri. He received the award Arjuna Puraskar in 1995. Dhanraj was the winning captain for the hockey team that played the Asian Games 2002. As a winning captain he received the reward of the player of the tournament in the Champions Trophy of the year 2002 at Cologne Germany.
Dhanraj Pillai was praised by his coaches and other players as “genius”, “spearhead”, ‘leader”, “center forward of the modern era” etc. During his days Dhanraj Pillai was incomparable gem of a hockey player. His mental power in concentrating on the game circumstances was highly commendable. Dhanraj had controversies with the Hockey Federation resulted him in not being selected for the Bussan Asiad. Later Dhanraj decided to start a hockey academy at Mumbai. His idea of starting the hockey academy did not work because the Bombay Hockey Association rejected his request to use the Astroturf feature for training.