Hockey Rankings: India Women Achieve Best-ever Sixth Place; Men Slip One Spot to Fourth

Mumbai: The Indian women’s hockey team has moved up one place in the FIH Rankings to sixth — the best-ever placing the team has achieved in the history of the rankings.

The team, which had jumped two places at the start of May following its superb performance against the top-ranked Netherlands at the Kalinga Stadium, climbed to sixth as Spain dropped one place after losing both their FIH Hockey Pro League 2021/22 matches to Argentina. They have also lost one match each to Belgium and England this month.

With 2029.396 points, the Indian women’s hockey team is now placed sixth behind the Netherlands (3049.495), Argentina (2674.837), Australia (2440.750), England (2204.590), and Germany (2201.085). Spain are seventh with a rating of 2016.149.

The Indian women’s hockey team currently sits at the third position in the FIH Hockey Pro League 2021/22 table with 22 points from 8 games. India will be facing Belgium in a double-header in away games on June 11 and 12.

Speaking on the achievement, the Indian women’s hockey team chief coach Janneke Schopman said, “As a team, we aim to improve and grow and become a consistent contender in Women’s Hockey. The rise in the FIH World Rankings is a nice indicator that we are on the right path.”

“At the same time with the FIH Women’s Hockey Pro League and FIH Women’s World Cup coming up, things can change quickly and therefore we have to keep focusing on our own performance,” Schopman was quoted as saying by Hockey India in a release on Tuesday.

The Indian women’s team captain Savita, also expressed delight at the achievement. “This is the outcome of all the hard work our team has done over the past few months. We have worked together as a team against strong competition and achieved good results, and we are proud that we are growing and learning together as a unit.”

Savita added, “We hope to continue our growth as we prepare for tougher challenges in away games against Belgium and The Netherlands. We are confident we will be able to get good results as well and continue to improve.”

However, there was some setback for Indian hockey as the men’s team slipped one place to fourth after the Netherlands overtook them thanks to some good performance this month.

Netherlands (2465.707) regained the third spot, as they swap places with India (2366.990). Germany (2308.156) continue to hold the fifth place but England (2171.354) moved to sixth ahead of Argentina (2147.179) thanks to their recent wins against France and South Africa in the Pro League.

Australia retained the top spot in men’s rankings with 2842.258 points with World and Olympic champions Belgium snapping at their heels with 2764.735 points.

IANS