Standing on the banks of the Thames, Rani Rampal has tears in her eyes. With the Hockey World Cup starting on Saturday, we are at a photoshoot with all 16 captains, but in a quiet corner away from her rivals the Indian captain is reflecting on the journey that has led her to London.
We’re talking about her first coach, Baldev Singh, and these are good tears, the ones that creep up on you when laughter and goosebumps aren’t enough as she remembers the barriers that inadvertently helped her to become a genuine superstar of the game: at the age of 23 she is already a veteran with 134 goals in 212 international appearances.
“I always thought about quitting hockey because of the poverty but Baldev helped me a lot,” Rani explains. “He’s very proud now. Whatever I am today is because of him. He worked so hard for me. He knows everything about me, where I come from, and he helped me off the pitch as well. So whenever I talk about him, I feel like: ‘Oh my god.’ He’s like god for me. Now I’m getting emotional.”
India start their World Cup campaign on Saturday against hosts England, with the match at the Lee Valley Tennis and Hockey Centre in London’s Olympic Park a 10,000 sell-out. It is a far cry from her humble beginnings – Rani grew up desperately poor in the small town of Shahabad, about 120 miles north of Delhi, and lived in a single storey of a house with father – a cart puller – her mother, her two brothers and their wives and children, with her uncle and his family on the floor below.
Simple things were a struggle. Waking up on time for Baldev’s 5am training sessions before school became an ordeal as the family could not afford a clock. “My mum did not sleep very much because she was worried about me being late,” says Rani. “She would get an idea of the time from looking at the sky and judge when it was 4am to wake me up.
“Once I arrived at 5.02am, two minutes late, and Baldev was so angry that he asked me to pay a 200 rupee [£2.23] fine. My dad only made about 100 rupees per day so I couldn’t pay that. I told my mum the story and asked her for the money. She was only able to give me 100. I gave it to Baldev before training and explained the money situation but he was still angry. At the end of the training session, he gave me the 100 rupees back, and another 100 on top, and said: ‘I don’t want to take money from you, I just want to teach you discipline.’ Since that day I’ve never been late.”
It helped that shortly after that episode her school ran a handwriting competition with the winner earning a small alarm clock. “My writing was terrible, but I practised and practised and I won it. So then my mother could get some rest.”
There were a number of other issues. Temperatures would sometimes reach over 40C so training time was limited. Shoes and sticks were too expensive and had to be borrowed from coaches and team-mates. But by then Rani had already overcome her biggest challenge, simply convincing her family to let her play sport.
“When I first asked to play hockey my parents immediately refused because I was a girl,” Rani says. “Every day I cried in front of them and told them I would treat my children the same way. For three years they didn’t trust me in case I did something wrong to bring a bad name to the family. India is a male-dominated country and nobody prefers women to play sport or go out from the house. My parents are not educated, they can’t even write their own names, so it’s very difficult for them to understand about sport. I said: ‘You should give me one chance,’ but my neighbours and relatives told my parents it would bring them a bad name because I would be wearing a skirt or shorts.
“Now the same people talk to my parents and always say ‘we are so proud of Rani’ and they send their kids to play hockey. My parents now say that if they made one decision in life that was good, it was to allow me to play hockey.”
That decision certainly paid off. Her talent was quickly recognised and she was called up to India’s 2010 World Cup squad aged just 15. She finished the tournament as the second-highest scorer with seven goals and was unsurprisingly voted the young player of the tournament.
Rani is one of just two current India players to have World Cup experience after the nation failed to qualify in 2014. She has been pivotal in their recent success: key goals against Italy and Japan helped India qualify for the 2016 Olympics – their first appearance since 1980 – and the Asia Cup victory last year was a major confidence boost for a team that is still part-time, with most players holding down jobs with Indian Railways.
At the Commonwealth Games this year India came from behind to beat England – ranked No 2 in the world and full-time athletes – in the group stage. Their meeting on Saturday will go a long way to establishing whether India can achieve their ambition of reaching the knockout stage, with USA and Ireland also in the group. “I think England have more pressure than us so we want to enjoy the game,” says Rani. “For three weeks a sports psychologist worked with us in Bangalore and that has helped us to believe in ourselves.”
Rani’s parents will be watching, from the comfort of their new home. “Last year I bought them a house and whenever I go there, I am so happy,” Rani says with a beaming smile. “They will watch the World Cup on television but they don’t know how to use smartphones so I can’t call them on Whatsapp – I have to call someone else if I want to speak with them.
“They worked so hard for me, struggled a lot with poverty and so now it’s my duty to do well for them so they can enjoy the rest of their lives.”
