Hockey India League: A long-awaited return for men and a timely debut for women

The murmurs surrounding its return grew louder with the men’s team bagging two successive Olympic bronze medals. Five months since the podium finish in Paris, the revamped Hockey India League (HIL) will finally see the light of day.

The men’s competition is set to make a comeback, the last season having been played in 2017, while the women are set to feature in the franchise league for the very first time. Nevertheless, it is a much-needed shot in the arm for the sport in the country.

Before the first iteration of the competition in 2013, India was ranked the 11th-best team in the world and the third-best in the continent. Its last Olympic medal came back in 1980. The HIL played its part in providing a platform and bringing together the core of Indian players who would eventually go on to medal at the Summer Games in 2021 and 2024.

Mandeep Singh, Manpreet Singh, Harmanpreet Singh, Amit Rohidas, PR Sreejesh, Gurjant Singh, Hardik Singh, Lalit Upadhyay, and Vivek Prasad are double Olympic medallists who made use of the HIL as a testing platform before becoming mainstays at the international level. Currently, India is ranked fifth in the world and the best in Asia over the last few years.

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Experts and former coaches have often cited India’s lack of club culture as the primary reason behind its decline in hockey at the international stage, but the HIL, despite its short window, helped bridge that gap in its formative years.

Defender Amit Rohidas credits Hockey India League for being the initial launchpad and later the turning point in his career. 
| Photo Credit:
K. MURALI KUMAR/THE HINDU

“Look how good the European league structure is, and when players from around the world go and play there, the respective country’s level also goes up,” says India midfielder Manpreet, who featured for the Ranchi Rhinos franchise between 2013 and 2017. “You get the opportunity to play world-class hockey and learn so many things from there. If you play with good players, your confidence goes up.”

While Manpreet had a couple of years of international experience before he joined the HIL, defender Amit credits the tournament for being the initial launchpad and later the turning point in his career. He still remembers the amount of money paid to him in the 2013 auction. “I was bought for 29,000 USD by Ranchi,” says Amit, who is regarded among the world’s finest first-rushers.

After his international debut in 2013, Amit was out of the national team picture for three years. “I had a dream, and that was to play in the HIL and return to the Indian team once again,” says Amit. In the following three seasons, Amit went on to win the title twice with Ranchi Rays (2015) and Kalinga Lancers (2017), including a runner-up finish with the latter in 2016.

Feeder line: The HIL played its part in providing a platform and bringing together the core of Indian players who would eventually go on to medal at the Summer Games in 2021 and 2024. 
| Photo Credit:
Getty Images

“After 2017, I came to the senior team and have remained here since. In the senior nationals that we play, it’s not possible to show the kind of talent you have. HIL is a platform that gives chances to players who don’t get the opportunity to make it to the national team but have the potential.”

HIL 2.0 instils the belief that it will continue to provide the feeder line for both the men’s and women’s teams. The launch of the women’s league couldn’t have come at a better time. After narrowly missing out on a bronze medal in Tokyo, the Indian team failed to qualify for the Paris Olympics. The team bounced back from the setback by winning the women’s Asian Champions Trophy recently. The national team is ranked ninth in the world.

“It’s a new phase, I would say,” says defender Ishika Chaudhary of Odisha Warriors. “The timing is impeccable in the sense that the very moment women’s hockey saw a dip (Paris 2024 non-selection), HIL decided to come along and give us hope. We’ll get the experience of playing with foreign players who have good experience of featuring in the Olympics. We get a look into the mentality of those who have been world champions. It wasn’t so good for us when we didn’t qualify.”

Ishika will be learning from the best when she teams up with the FIH women’s Player of the Year and Netherlands’ Olympic gold medallist Yibbi Jansen come January, like Amit did in 2013. “They were all big players. Double Olympic winners like Moritz Furste of Germany were in my team. I learnt a lot about playing as a defender from them. They taught you about positioning, tackling and passing. Even if you were making mistakes, they wouldn’t scold you. They used to cover for our mistakes and help push the level of the team high by instilling confidence,” remembers Amit.

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The auction dynamics in 2024 also hint at India’s overbearing presence on the global map of hockey. In the 2013 auction, the marquee set was dominated by overseas players, with three foreigners earning more than Sandeep Singh and Sardar Singh. This time around, the top three bids in the men’s auction have all gone to Indians.

In 2016, then-18-year-old midfielder Hardik was picked up by Jaypee Punjab Warriors for over Rs 33 lakh. In 2024, he commanded a price of Rs 70 lakh — the third-most expensive bid in the auction.

Manpreet, who signed for Team Gonasika for Rs 42 lakh, feels, “Franchises have seen the success that the Indian team has had in recent years and have decided to invest in whichever good Indian players are there. All the experienced and even young players have got good money this time. Before, there was a lot of dependency on foreign players, but this time, they have decided to bank on Indian players.”

Indian defender Udita turned out to be the most expensive player in the women’s auction.
| Photo Credit:
R. V. MOORTHY

In the women’s auction too, four of the top five picks were Indians, with defender Udita coming out on top with Rs 32 lakh. Udita feels that the platform, which will attract plenty of eyeballs, is a good start for the women’s game. “More often than not, we tend to focus on the national teams. Other players get sidelined automatically. During the nationals, as a lot of international players feature, much of the focus is on them, and we don’t take a look at the up-and-coming talent who will shape the future of the sport in the country,” she says. It was mandated by the HIL organising committee that four of the 24 players in a squad needed to be juniors.

Salima Tete will be part of the Soorma Hockey Club, one of the four women’s teams, as opposed to the eight-team league in the men’s competition. The midfielder is hopeful that the addition of more teams in the next edition will increase the competitive level of the league. “We are only a four-team league now, and by the next edition, two more teams are set to join (the Hyderabad Toofans and BC Jindal Group Mumbai).

“The thrill right now is ample, but only maybe when two more teams join, we will get the wholehearted feel of HIL-W being a tournament. It will get interesting because many of us will end up in different teams, and the competitiveness of the entire group will kick in,” says Tete.

Apart from rubbing shoulders with world-class players, the Indians will also get the opportunity to learn new ideas and tactics from coaching staff coming in from around the world. Ten of the total 12 teams have head coaches who are from overseas.

“I think this is a boosting period for young players to learn lessons about themselves… ‘Where am I as a player? What are the next steps that I need to take?’

And now, in that mix, you throw in international coaches, who have maybe a different view of things; so whether it’s better or not, sometimes a different view helps you learn about new elements and new tactics,” says Pasha Gademan, who will coach the Toofans (men).

UP Rudras technical director Cedric D’Souza, who previously coached the Indian national team and the now-defunct Delhi Waveriders, has a wish.

“I hope to see the men’s team win the Olympics gold in 2028 and the women’s team in 2032.” 

Much like Cedric, several Indian men’s and women’s players of the current and upcoming generation harbour similar ambitions. The revival of the HIL seems to be a step in the right direction.