5 Actors who can play the role of Major Dhyan Chand to perfection
Major Dhyan Chand. The Legend. The Man. The Wizard of Hockey. History has many names for India's greatest hockey player. Born to a British Army soldier and a homemaker, the young soldier made a name for himself in field hockey.
What Jesse Owens is to athletics or Sachin Tendulkar is to cricket, Dhyan Chand is to hockey. He scored more than 550 international goals playing for British India. At least 40 of them came at the Olympic games, from 1928 to 1936. In his honor, India celebrates his birthday, 29 August, as its National Sports Day.
Major Dhyan Chand made his Olympic debut at the Amsterdam Olympics in 1928. Of the 29 goals India scored, 14 came from Dhyan Chand. At the Los Angeles Olympics 1932, he scored 12 of the 35 Indian goals. He scored 8 goals in a record match against the United States, which India won 24-1. As the team captain in Berlin, he scored another 12 goals and led the team to a hat-trick gold.
Major Dhyan Chand had a colorful life worth a blockbuster biopic, or even a riveting web series. Sadly, neither has happened till date. The closest was Reema Kagti's "Gold." Kunal Kapoor's Samrat, a charismatic player of the British Indian team, was based on Major Dhyan Chand.
However, things may change for the better. 'Ishqiya' and 'Udta Punjab' fame director Abhishek Chaubey is all set to bring Dhyan Chand's life onto the silver screen. Some media reports even claim that actor Varun Dhawan has turned down the offer to play the legend.
While nobody knows how much of this is true, here are 5 actors who could immortalize the role of Major Dhyan Chand.