5 days till Asian Games 2023: Years of hard work paid off for India hockey goalkeeper Bichu Devi

The 21-year-old goalkeeper Bichu Devi Kharibam from Manipur made her senior debut last year, and has been a revelation ever since.

The Indian women’s hockey team is on a roll. Ever since they put in the performance of their lives at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, where the team finished fourth beyond all expectations, running each of their opponents ragged with their speed and skills on the field, the team has gone from strength to strength. Last year, the team won bronze at the Asia Cup and the Commonwealth Games, finished third in the Pro League, and were brilliant in the inaugural FIH Nations Cup where they were crowned champions without losing a single game.

This is a team that’s just getting started. It is also a team that has the best of both worlds — battle-hardened veterans who are still at peak power, like Vandana Katariya, Gurjit Kaur and captain-goalkeeper Savita, as well as explosive young talent who are quickly proving themselves at the biggest stage, like Lalremsiami, Salima Tete and Akshata Dekhale.

Bichu Devi Kharibam falls in that second category. The 21-year-old from Manipur made her senior debut last year, and has been a revelation ever since. Goalkeeping is a position that demands experience — the usual trajectory at the elite level is that keepers remain an understudy till their late 20s, serving the necessary time required to learn how to control the defense, read the game, and find their positioning nous.

Seen in that light, Bichu Devi’s rise has been nothing short of phenomenal— she was part of the team that won the 2018 Youth Olympics silver — but ever since she made her debut in 2022 for the senior team, she has seemed like a natural fit, rotating with captain Savita in the Pro League, straight to the World Cup as an understudy, a growing reputation as a daring shot-stopper who attacks the ball (she may just be India’s preferred choice for penalty shootouts) and now, in less than a year, undoubtedly India’s second-choice keeper.

“When I made my debut, my main aim was to become an integral part of the team,” Bichu said in an interview to Moneycontrol.com. “I came in with an open mind to learn from everyone. Sarita didi has been very helpful. Everyone treats me with love, like a sister and the coaches and seniors have allowed me to improve with a free mind, with no stress.”

Now she is headed for the Asian Games with a team that’s aiming for nothing less than gold, something that Indian women’s hockey last managed in 1982. It’s not fanciful thinking — India are currently ranked 6th in the world, the highest ranking for an Asian team. Winning the Asian Games gold will also earn them qualification for the Paris Olympics next year.

“All the hard work is to get exactly to this position, so I feel great!” Bichu said with a laugh. “The team atmosphere is so good. Everyone helps each other. Even if we make mistakes, we help each other, we assure each other that we have each other’s back. The Asian Games is a big thing for all of us, and I feel like we will do very well.”

Indian women's hockey team goalkeeper Bichu Devi Kharibam.

Bichu may be young and a rookie in the senior side, but her big personality has meant that she has quickly become a strong presence in the squad, something that goalkeepers need to have anyway. Off the field, she is a prankster, singing, dancing, joking around, making swagger reels on Instagram. On the field, she is fiery, in-your-face, and extremely verbal, something that was captured in all its essence in a viral video from last year’s Junior World Cup where Bichu made some stunning saves and celebrated those saves with uninhibited adrenalin in a match against Germany (India won the match the top their group; Germany went on to win the silver, and India lost via penalties to England in the bronze medal match).

“When I am on the field, I don’t know really what comes over me, how I get that aggressive,” Bichu said, laughing. “Later when I see my own videos, I feel ashamed! On the ground I scream, I say what I feel like, and I am very pumped up. I feel a lot more energy when I feel aggressive, so that is good for me, but also I am focusing on learning to be calm. Sometimes I get carried away and then I lose some focus. Sometimes when I’m coaching the defenders I get so passionate that I forget my primary function. I don’t want to be non-aggressive, because that’s my thing…sometimes when I’m a little down, because I’m injured, or upset with myself, the didis ask me, ‘what happened to you? This is not good! Where’s your aggressive self that we love?’”

It may be hard to find another player in the squad as animated and passionate as Bichu, but her introduction to hockey happened in the face of reluctance and opposition. Bichu, whose parents are farmers, grew up in a village where the only sport that meant anything was football.

“Everyone was always playing football,” she said, “and I was the only girl playing with all the boys and men in the village matches and tournaments. I love football.”

Seeing her talent, Bichu’s father took her to the Sports Authority of India (SAI) centre in Imphal when she was 12 years old, only to discover that their football programme had no vacancies. The SAI director, after looking at Bichu’s physical trial, recommended that she join the hockey programme, and switch over in a few months to football.

“So I enrolled, even though I knew nothing at all about hockey,” Bichu said. “For the first few months, all I did was play football and I was very happy.”

But after about three months, the coaches at SAI told her that she has to stick to the hockey programme since no vacancies had opened up in football.

“I cried and howled and I shouted at my father and told him it’s all his fault,” Bichu said. “Papa told me, ‘okay, you are still very young, why don’t you try hockey for a year, and if you still want to play football, we will do something about it’.”

Somewhat pacified, Bichu began to learn the rudiments of hockey. She wanted, of course, to score goals. So when the coaches told her that her physicality and reflexes were much better suited for the goalkeeper’s position, Bichu was reduced to tears again.

“But then I started doing well, I started getting excited about making saves, I saw what my body was capable of,” she said.

Then, a hockey coach spotted her at a local tournament and told her to shift her base to Madhya Pradesh, which has a far stronger hockey programme compared to Manipur. Here, Bichu flourished, and in another couple of years, found herself in national junior squad.

Ever since, it has been a rocket ride for the cat-like goalkeeper.

How will she celebrate if the team wins the Asian Games?

“One of the things I have had to give up since I became a part of the national team is KFC fried chicken, which I love,” she said. “If we win, that’s what I’ll be eating!”