‘Skinny Indian kid’ who plays rugby 7s for Hong Kong wants to be ‘role model I didn’t have’

As a “scrawny, skinny little Indian kid” Shiven Dukhande grew used to people telling him his goal of playing professional rugby was a pipe dream. To underline that opinion, Dukhande, who became obsessed with the sport from his first USRC Tigers training session, aged eight, would look at those forging rugby careers and see “no one who was the same colour as me”. Now the owner of two Hong Kong sevens caps, and with a goal of earning many more, Dukhande said he wanted to be the “role model I didn’t have”. “If I can inspire the younger generation, that’ll be my job completed,” the 25-year-old said. Born and raised in Hong Kong, Dukhande played football and cricket until it was suggested to his parents that rugby would be an ideal outlet for their “naughty and aggressive” child.

For his part, Dukhande was immediately drawn to the rough and tumble of the sport. “Perhaps I was delusional but from that day I wanted to play rugby for the rest of my life,” he said. “From about 10, I was treating it like I was a professional. “I wasn’t the best at school, and rugby was the only thing keeping me on track. My parents saw I was doing everything I could and excelling at age-grade levels, and realised something was happening. “They didn’t put any pressure on me … but I felt massive pressure to not let them down. They backed me to pursue my dream and if I hadn’t made it professionally, I’d have felt I’d failed them.” Rejected by Hartpury College in England because of his “really bad” projected GCSE results, Dukhande knuckled down and left ESF King George V School in 2016 with an A-dominated grade sheet. An acceptance letter from Hartpury arrived on Dukhande’s first day in New Zealand, where, motivated by rugby, he had moved to study at St Paul’s Collegiate School in Hamilton. “It gave me some of the best and worst experiences of my life,” said Dukhande, who as a teenager of Indian origin from Hong Kong was met with scepticism in a rugby-crazy country. “For the first few days I thought, ‘Why did I come?’,” Dukhande said.

A close friendship with eventual roommate Tepaea Cook-Savage, who would go to the 2024 Olympics with New Zealand’s sevens team and currently plays for Chiefs in Super Rugby, helped him integrate, as did his ability on the field. In his first college pre-season match, Dukhande tore an ACL. “It was the worst feeling, but a blessing in disguise,” he said. “I realised there was more to life than rugby, I got involved in the New Zealand culture and it gave me an appreciation of how lucky I’d been to grow up in Hong Kong. “I learned a lot about the game from not playing but being around it. Staying was one of the best decisions I made; I’d have felt a failure if I’d come home.” Initially a 15s fan who dreamed of playing Super Rugby, it was while studying for a degree in sports and exercise at Lindenwood University in Missouri that Dukhande discovered a passion for the exhausting demands of sevens. “You’re constantly fatigued and don’t have time to think, which I now love,” Dukhande said. “I’m built with an engine so it suits me.” Playing university rugby, Dukhande equipped himself with the physicality to match “freak athletes”. Mentally, he was challenged by a coach in Josh Macy who initially ignored him. “I was close to transferring, but I went away for the summer and shifted my mindset,” Dukhande said. “Previously, if a coach told me I was average I would believe it, but I decided I knew who I was and if someone didn’t like it, I didn’t care.

He noticed that and for the next two years I played.” In 2022, Dukhande was invited to join the Hong Kong Sevens programme. In and out of the team since, his immediate goal is to make the Asian Games squad. “Everyone in the squad completely accepted me, and more Indian players can follow. Your size or where you’re from doesn’t matter, but you have to be obsessed with the game and do the work. “You have to love the physicality. When I was stressed from a tough day, rugby would be my escape.

I’d run at someone, or take contact. You get to hurt people for free, you know?

Afterwards it was back to reality.” Laid low by a hamstring injury for this year’s Cathay/HSBC Hong Kong Sevens, Dukhande made his tournament debut last year in front of his watching parents. “That was the moment when I felt, ‘I’m making them proud’,” he said. “There were so many people in Kai Tak, including lots of the Indian community. My parents could see, ‘He’s doing it now, he’s accomplished his goal’.”