HIL: India midfielder Hardik recalls mentoring role of league | Hockey

New Delhi: There was a glint in his eye as Hardik Singh discussed the return of the Hockey India League (HIL) over a video call from Rotterdam. The franchise-based tournament will be a homecoming on many fronts for the India vice-captain when it starts on December 28.

While the 26-year-old will make a return to playing since his shoulder injury suffered during the bronze playoff win over Spain at the Paris Olympics.

Out for almost four months after suffering an acromioclavicular joint tear in his left shoulder, Hardik is currently in the Netherlands leading a largely U-25 India squad to play friendlies.

“I am 90% fit. When you get injured and are out of the squad, you lose confidence. You need to regain it. This tour is important for me. Though I have been playing matches in training, these matches are more like international games, which also tells me where I am currently game-wise. I need the confidence too before playing HIL,” said the 2023 FIH Player of the Year.

Hardik was also on a nostalgic trip, recalling when he was a ball boy and watched top players like then India captain Sardar Singh and Australian great Mark Knowles from the sidelines.

“I remember it like it was yesterday. It was 2014, in Mohali. I was a ball boy in HIL. Three years later when I played in HIL, it was a big thing for me. I was sharing the dressing room with the likes of Knowles, Sardar paji. I had a legendary coach in Barry Dancer,” said the midfielder, who will lead UP Rudras in the next HIL edition starting later this month.

“I learned so much about international hockey from these legends even before playing my first international, be it tactics, strategy or how to communicate.”

Australia were the most dominant in world hockey then, having won successive World Cups in 2010 and 2014. Hardik’s team in 2017, Jaypee Punjab Warriors, was full of Aussies, including towering figures like Knowles, Chris Ciriello and Simon Orchard.

Now a double Olympic bronze medallist, Hardik saw that the Aussies were doing the same things as India players in the dressing room, he noticed that it was the details that set them apart, and added them to his game.

“On the field, they gave a lot importance to the details, much more than us, like tactics and mindset. Also, when we discussed about playing Australia back then, we felt overwhelmed playing against them,” said Hardik, who has 142 international caps.

“When you share the dressing room, you realise they are also human beings. Our batch really benefitted playing against them; that is how we won the (2016) Junior World Cup. Because the players had shared the dressing room in HIL with the Aussies, they were confident they could win, having overcome the earlier mindset of playing against them.”

HIL will also see the astute midfielder unite with UP Rudras technical director Cedric D’Souza, the former India coach who also guided Hardik’s father Varinderpreet Singh Rai in the early 1990s at the national camp. Though Rai never played for India, D’Souza and Hardik spoke about the connection after UP Rudras bought him for ₹70 lakh, making him the third most expensive player in the HIL auction.

“In the 2023 World Cup, he said he’d be very happy to coach me. I said it would be an honour for me as he was my father’s coach too. For me it’s really a big thing because it’s about my family’s legacy,” added Hardik, who comes from a family of hockey players.

Hardik’s grandfather Preetam Singh Rai was a hockey coach with the Indian Navy while uncle Jugraj Singh was a top India drag-flicker. His aunt Rajbir Kaur was a member of the victorious 1982 Asian Games women’s team while her husband Gurmail Singh was part of the triumphant 1980 Moscow Olympics side.