World ranking doesn’t matter much to us, says Harmanpreet

Four impressive successive wins in Hockey Pro League 2022-2023 home games have helped Indian men’s hockey jump to the fourth place in the latest FIH World Ranking but for captain Harmanpreet Singh it doesn’t matter much to his team as players prioritise to convert their chances and create pressure on the opposition team rather than thinking about rankings. After a hat-trick of wins, the Indian team remained unbeaten as they put up a resilient performance against Australia in the last home game in the FIH Hockey Pro League, registering a 2-2 (4-3 SO) win, here on Wednesday night. Before this, India beat reigning World Champions Germany 3-2 and 6-3 followed by a 5-4 win against Australia, in their last game. India’s outstanding feat in Rourkela has put them on top of the pool standing in the FIH Hockey Pro League. The team now leads the chart with 19 points from eight matches and are ahead of Spain, which have 17 points from eight games, followed by Argentina in the third position with 13 points from 12 games. Reigning World Champions Germany have been pushed to no.4 in the pool standing with 11 points after 8 matches. The result has also helped India climb up the FIH World Ranking, having beaten teams ranked higher than them. India was ranked no.6 when they began their campaign at home, while Germany was ranked No.1 and Australia ranked No.4, ahead of this year’s Pro League outing. The Indian side is now ranked 4th in the world behind reigning World Champions Germany, which have dropped to 3rd in the recently updated FIH world ranking. “I think these things (world ranking) don’t matter to us so much. We don’t keep this in mind when we play. Our only priority was to convert our chances and keep the pressure on the opponent. Some of the youngsters who got an opportunity to show their talent also stood up to the occasion and did very well for themselves as well as the team”, said Harmanpreet, who is currently the leading goal-scorer in the FIH Hockey Pr