What next for Indian Women's Hockey after FIH Nations Cup win?

Having won the FIH Nations Cup, Indian Women's hockey team must turn their sight towards the FIH Pro League where they have the unique opportunity of competing with the best teams in the world

The last couple of years have been a wild ride for Indian Women’s hockey that has witnessed several highs and lows. Who can forget that almost dreamy Olympic run in Tokyo where the Women in Blue finished fourth, thus missing a medal by a whisker. They followed that up with a third place finish in the FIH Pro League, a sign of their ability to compete and go neck-to-neck with some of the very best in the world.

Normally, expectations around the World Cup in July were high as the Indian women’s team generated plenty of optimism. However, it will be fair to say that those expectations were hardly met as they suffered a bitter end to the campaign, finishing ninth when many people expected them to at least qualify for the semi-finals.

There was redemption just around the corner, however, as they pulled themselves back up and picked up a bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. In between these highs and lows as well as a case of assessing between different competitions, it has been hard to figure out India’s actual quality and the development of the players.

With that being said, their recent victory in the FIH Nations Cup, thanks to a 1-0 win in the final over Spain, drives home the fact that Team India are somewhere in the middle when it comes to being able to challenge for medals in the big competitions and merely competing.

The Savita Punia led side do have the players to go head to head with the big teams and pull off upsets but India will also require to take things up a notch or two in order to get to that level on a consistent basis.

The last time that the Indian Women’s team competed in the Pro League was mostly down to the fact that Australia and New Zealand weren’t able to participate due to COVID restrictions. However, it won’t be the case this time around as the Women in Blue qualified on the basis of merit and distinction, having won the FIH Nations Cup.

Having aced through a difficult challenge in the FIH Nations Cup where they had to overcome considerable odds, the Women in Blue must turn their attention towards the Pro League which will provide the obvious next step in their development trajectory.

Only the top nine sides in the world compete in the Pro League and competition is fierce and getting the opportunity to play against some of these teams over a duration of six months is expected to improve any team’s standards considerably.

It becomes even more pivotal given that the domestic structure in India isn’t really the strongest and the gulf in quality between domestic level and international level is immense. Taking everything into context, India may not have the resources and the setup or the squad to challenge for the Pro League title, but at the end of the day, it hardly matters.

What matters is the exposure that the players will get as well as the time in the limelight afforded to the youngsters who will realise sooner rather than later what it actually takes to succeed at the very highest level in the sport. Playing against different teams will also allow Indian players and personnel to take notes of their different styles and methods which might prove to be handy in a later competition.

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