Jasjit Singh Kularਜਸਜੀਤ ਸਿੰਘ ਕੁਲਾਰ

Jasjit Singh Kular (born 30 December 1989) is an Indian field hockey defender and drag-flick specialist from Sansarpur, a hockey-famous census town beside Jalandhar Cantonment in Punjab's Doaba region. He made his India debut at the 2014 World Cup in The Hague without ever having played junior international hockey, scored twice from drag-flicks against Malaysia in India's only win of that tournament, and went on to win the 2016 Asian Champions Trophy and a Hockey World League Final bronze with India.

Early life in Sansarpur

Jasjit was born on 30 December 1989 in Sansarpur, in Jalandhar district, into a family of doctors with hockey in its blood. His father, grandfather and great-grandfather had all played the game, and his sister Chrisinder Kaur played hockey at national level before becoming a doctor in the army. The town around him needed no introduction to the sport: Sansarpur is known across the hockey world as the Mecca of hockey, a town of about 4,600 people credited with 14 Olympic hockey players, nearly all from Kular families on a single street.

Hockey was part of childhood in Sansarpur, but in Jasjit's home, studies came first. His family did not want him joining a hockey academy, fearing his education would suffer, so he played as a boy without any thought of a career in the game. That order of priorities shaped everything that followed: he would reach the national team as a graduate who had learned the game largely on his own, not as a product of the academy system.

A late start in hockey

Jasjit only began to take hockey seriously at 18, as a student of Khalsa College in Jalandhar. He had never played in a sub-junior or junior national championship, and he had never attended a hockey academy. His mother took him to the turf at the Surjit Hockey Academy in Jalandhar on Sundays, when the academy was closed, so he could practise. He caught the eye playing for Guru Nanak Dev University at the All India Varsity championship, and he was picked from around 90 probables after the Senior Nationals in Pune.

In 2011 he joined the national camp in Pune, and around the same time he joined Indian Railways, which posted him in Jalandhar. He kept studying alongside the sport, working towards a business management degree. Coaches who watched him saw a player willing to play anywhere in midfield, and one who picked up skills and tactics by watching and doing rather than by drilling them from childhood.

International debut at the 2014 World Cup

Jasjit's call-up for the 2014 World Cup in The Hague surprised many, including, by his own account, himself. He had been injured shortly before selection and was unsure of his chances, but head coach Terry Walsh stood by him and he travelled with the squad. He made his international debut as a half-back against Belgium, at 24, in the biggest tournament in the sport, without a single junior international behind him.

His moment came against Malaysia. With India chasing the game, Jasjit scored twice from rising drag-flicks, his first goals from drag-flicks in international hockey, to seal a 3-2 win, India's only victory of the tournament. Back in Sansarpur the news set off celebrations: children gathered at the village ground with handmade sticks, elders offered prayers at the gurdwara, and the town hailed him as the first Kular to wear India colours since Ajit Pal Singh, who had captained India to the 1975 World Cup title.

Why is Jasjit Singh Kular known as a drag-flick specialist?

Jasjit is known as a drag-flick specialist because his penalty-corner flicks repeatedly rescued India at the biggest moments, above all at the Hockey World League Semi-Final in Antwerp in July 2015. Trailing Malaysia 2-1 in the quarter-final, India won two late penalty corners and Jasjit converted both, in the 49th and 56th minutes, to turn the match into a 3-2 win and a place in the semi-finals.

A drag-flick is the low, powerful shot a specialist takes from a penalty corner, running in and scooping the ball at speed, and it demands timing more than strength. Jasjit had started his career as a forward, moved into midfield, and then found his true position as a defender who doubled as the penalty-corner shooter. When the team's established flickers, V. R. Raghunath and Rupinder Pal Singh, were injured or out of form, coaches turned to him, and the Antwerp match earned him the tag of India's crisis manager.

Asian Champions Trophy and league titles

The Antwerp win was part of a strong run. In December 2015 Jasjit was in the India squad that won bronze at the Hockey World League Final in Raipur, beating the Netherlands in a shootout, and in 2016 he won the Hockey India League title with Jaypee Punjab Warriors, a memory he still ranks among his best in the game.

His biggest title came at the 2016 Asian Champions Trophy in Kuantan, Malaysia. Named in Hockey India's 18-man squad as a defender expected to cover for the injured Raghunath as drag-flicker, he played as India beat Pakistan 3-2 in the final on 30 October 2016 to lift the trophy. The International Hockey Federation's team list for that tournament credits him with 53 India caps by then.

Injury, setback and later career

The peak did not last. In 2018 Jasjit suffered a knee injury at the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup and fell out of the national team. He later recalled head coach Roelant Oltmans telling him he needed a mentally stronger player, a judgement that stung. By November 2020 he was living in Jalandhar, employed by Northern Railway, and hoping to force his way back through the Senior National Championships with Indian Railways.

In 2022 he played abroad as an overseas professional, joining Rupayan Group Cumilla for the first season of Bangladesh's Hockey Champions Trophy, where the Cumilla side finished third. No coaching role has been reported for him since, and his international career is best measured by the short, sharp peak between his debut and the 2016 Asian Champions Trophy.

Legacy

Jasjit's story matters beyond his medals because of how he got there. He reached the World Cup at 24 without an academy, without junior internationals and without giving up his studies, a path almost unheard of in modern Indian hockey. In 2020 he said he was the last player from Sansarpur to have played for India, and that no one from the town had done so for more than a decade before him.

Sansarpur's golden age, when its Kular families filled Olympic squads, had faded long before he arrived, and his career did not restart it. But for a town that measures itself in hockey, he restored a link to the days of Udham Singh and Ajit Pal Singh, and he showed a new generation that the road to India colours does not have to start in childhood.