Stars and flops of Hockey India League 2014

With titanic levels of fee paid for their five-week contract to play in the World’s Most Affluent Hockey event namely Hero Hockey India League – which most West World players would have earned even had they played hockey for five decades — its time to see who lived upto the expectations, not necessary justify their cost, and who are not.

One player coming in the NOT category is Ramandeep Singh, who surprising got the best pay in the ‘closed bidding’. His pay of USD upwards of 80,000 was seen with wide eyes, taken by the knowledgeable with a pinch of salt. For whatever reasons, he proved his critics right. From fitness to finesse he came out badly.

Having been unfit, and with struggling form, he was the biggest let down of HHIL 2014.

On the other hand, with bare minimum fee, Gurbaj Singh of Delhi Waveriders won the heart of many, and its wonderful to see the all rounder covering every inch of the turf, omnipresent, and doing excellent amount of defence and offence duties. Many know he is not in the national team because of his overt views on coaching and off-field developments, a man-management issue taken to extreme level of exonerating him from the squad.

Gurbaj has proved all those who sidelined him — Chief Coach Michael Nobbs, Selectors, and Hockey India’s invisible hands — wrong.

These two players make the extremes of HHIL 2014 spectrum.

All other cases fall within these two contours.

Ashley Jackson, bronze medallist this time, gold in the last year, stood for one certain thing: Commitment and never say die spirit.

Indian proponents of League of this nature justify the huge money spent one premise that it gives chance to Indian players to rub with the world’s best. Ashley’s game, like many others too, gives much credence to their position. He was also injured, came back with venom and showed what commitment meant in sporting parlance.

Manpreet Singh, who played alongside Ashley Jackson in the same Rhinos, and scored in the medal matches this year and last year, comes under below-par performance category, fair as he is on low since almost a year.

He represents the age old Indian problem of youngsters who bloom in some tournaments for sometime! Is he over-rated? This is a genuine concern.

Birendra Lakra of Rhinos is one player who could keep his reputation intact; but with more work on the defence rather than as attacking midfielder, he did not hog the limelight. But served his team’s purpose fully.

Yuvraj Walmiki surely is Shivender Singh of PHL days. He stamped his usefulness — imagine scoring winning goal in four matches – despite not played not more than 20,25 minutes each game.

Nicolas Jacobi, who won Man of the Match award thrice last edition, was remarkable, and with Jaap Stockmann stand a class apart.

I don’t venture comparison of other goalies against the duo simply because theirs is a different ball game, are in different planet.

While highly paid PR Sreejesh nearly flopped, its Harjot Singh, lone Indian goalie to stand most of times for his franchise, showed enormous nerve to come back despite two big lows that came in the way, that too in the beginning of the campaign. We can’t judge Sushant Tirkey fully as he was not given adequate testing time to blossom as Francisco Cortes took lion’s share of Rhino’s cage.

Harte was inconsistent, by far better than Sreejesh, and it should be a big worry for India in a World Cup, Asian Games year.

Rupinder Pal and Raghunath, stalwarts of Indian defence, who bagged very decent pay, had mixed outings. They did score, but not on crucial moments. Rupinder shone as a reliable defender, while Raghunath as effecting defensive midfielder despite being full-flooded defender.

Danish Mujtaba and Mandeep Singh, the duos who counted a lot last time, could not be proved so now due to injury and recovery hassles.

Akashdeep Singh, like Yuvraj, must now count their place in the national side. Askash was far more effective than hawkish Yuvraj, and deserved the hefty cheque he got as Promising Youngster.

Teun de Nooijer and Glen Turner, greats in their own way, were highly praised by our commentators, but in reality they did not live upto their top billing. Both took time to come to their own, by the time they did, it was too late to be termed match winners.

Glenn in the early part of the HHIL 2014 was very tentative, too much individualism; and for Luke Doerner he has not done anything great to take note of.

Jamie Dwyer even went on to score through penalty corner when the Warriors did not have any specialist last year, and showed stamped his class for the cause of his team. This edition is conspicuous for lesser time he got on the turf, and the time slots that his coach Barry Dancer gave him is a proof what role and form he has been in.

Of the oldies of the HHIL 2014, Floris and Moritz, Kumar Subramaniam, and Alegre brothers were reasonable. This excludes others mentioned above and below besides goalies.

Nikkin Thimmaiah was a revelation, seems he will go places if some polishing in his finish is given by experts.

Same must hold true for Affan Yousaff; hope now the so-called selectors no longer ignore him. He is gifted and natural talent.

Dharamvir started well, lost confidence of coach somewhere in between and it is justifiable; so also Satbir Singh and Malak Singh.

Rob Hammond was one who stole the eyeballs with consistently good game, and he is 30 plus.

Simon Child, despite scoring a brace of goal twice in two games, was a bit lesser match winner this time compared to last.

SV Sunil and Christopher Ciriello, Simon Orchard and Mark Knowles sparked in spells, and with 24 players in each team their coaches could not spare more time than what they ultimately got.

Gurjinder Singh, bid for hefty amount, is a fall from grace, and the hype surrounds him is now blown out.
Most good players in Mumbai Magicians did not spark, drowned by the overall sense and trend; though Vikas Pillay in the early part, Chinglensana as the tournament wore on, shone and merits national call.

Lalit Upadhyaya epitomized all that is energy and enterprise, turned out to be a great asset for Kalinga, a sure shot success in the high voltage league.

Mandeep Antil was going great gun before that fateful day when he lost many teeth, players of such talent had been allowed to go waste due to WSH-HIL fracas. Nice at least wisdom prevailed, but was it too late with respect to some stars. None will have outright answer.

Gonzalo Peillat, Kiel Brown, both of Kalinga, Ravi Pal and Trent Mitton of Magicians, made their names, and deservingly. They got less monies but delivered more.

There were 144 players, some more came in replacing injured ones. Its not easy to measure everyone of them in one piece, but an attempt is nevertheless necessary, which this writer attempted.

Arjun Halappa, Raj Pal Singh, Ravi Pal Singh, Bharat Chhikara, Vikram Pillay and the likes gave moments of turn overs in fortunes of their teams; but not long ago they were considered ‘old’’money-minded’ and not taken for neither national team nor HHIL 2013. They now rescued this year’s edition, as some coaches in Germany and Netherlands would not waste their players’ energy on HHIL 2014.

HI must have understood by now. Insulting and insulating section of our own players is one thing, sometimes it suits politics of ego, but when time comes they only rescue anything India. I mean Hockey India League.