Adrian D’Souza’s life would make for a perfect Bollywood movie script.u00a0

D’Souza enjoyed a mercurial rise from a middle-class suburban Mumbai (Malad) kid, who trained at the concrete courts of St Anne’s High School (Orlem) to going on to become one of India’s top-notch hockey goalkeepers known to have innovatively thwarted some of the world’s best drag-flickers including the lethal Pakistani Sohail Abbas. Inconsistent form thereafter saw D’Souza being in and out of the national team before he launched a comeback onto the big stage as captain of Mumbai Marines, one of the franchises of the inaugural franchise-based multi-million dollar World Series Hockey (Feb 29-April 2). The ‘script’ gets even better though as D’Souza’s team finishes last in the league, and as if that was not dramatic enough, he then tests positive for a banned substance tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in tests conducted by the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) and is banned from the game for a year. D’Souza accepted his error and appealed against the severity of the ban and got it reduced to three months, that ended on Sunday, September 30.