National teams take part in many tournaments purely on honorary basis. Which means the players are not paid for sweating out in taking part in tournaments. Its free service for players and their role is taken for granted. This is the case in hockey like many other Olympic sports. But, for instance, in cricket there is match fee, entry fee in golf that runs into crores per each player. The situation being as such, our writer Shashank Gupta, uses the same cost by which players were sold in the yesterday’s HIL auction, to work out roughly how much it would have cost any hockey tournament organizers otherwise! We understand Asian Champions Trophy is not a league, but more than that as it involves international teams, and also the duration is less, each player need not sweat out like of which is expected in long drawn out leagues — Editor.

Qatar bound Indian team is worth of Rs. 4 Cr.

The recently concluded Hockey India League auctions reveal some intriguing numbers.
The huge surprise is India’s Hockey talent is just 70 players! At least, that’s what is conveyed by 5 Franchises of HIL. Each team has got 14 Indian players and 10 foreign players. So, total 120 players out of which 70 are Indian and 50 are foreign.

Even though 14 Indian players out of 24 mean 55% but baring Delhi Wave Riders team who has 59% of their total spending on Indian players, others are fairly low. Whereas Mumbai Magicians spent 49% of their Rs. 3.21cr on Indian players, Punjab Warriors spent only 39% of their Rs. 3.45cr in the same category. UP Wizards similar spending was at 43% and Ranchi Rhinos were 41%.

So, effectively, of the Rs. 16.75cr that was spent, only 46% (7.67cr) went to Indian players.
Interestingly, if one draws parallels with the Indian Hockey team outbound for Asian Champions Trophy, at Doha, Qatar, the figure is mindboggling.

Out of the above Rs. 7.67cr, the value of the team going to Qatar is Rs. 4.03cr. Bring in the stand-bye players – Sandeep Singh is alone Rs. 35L – and the figure reaches Rs. 5.03cr, for a total 26 Indian players.

Rest 44 Indian players are only a petty Rs. 2.64cr out of Rs. 16.75cr.

Among these 44 are high rated players that are not a part of Indian team, currently — Gurbaj Singh – 19L, Sandeep Singh –35L, Sarvanjit Singh 16L, Ignace Tirkey – 17L, Shivendra Singh 15L, Bharat Chetri – 10L and Tushar Khandkar 8L.

Omit these, and you are left with 37 players on which the money spent is a pittance – 1.44cr, i.e. under 4L per player. This, from one perspective, is HIL’s investment on players who haven’t made a debut for India.

From yet another perspective, that is what the youth of India, who is considering taking up a professional sport like Hockey, can expect to earn from HIL.

Amongst such Indian youngsters who are yet to make debut for India are Satbir Singh and Gagandeep Singh taken for 24L and 12L, respectively, by Mumbai Magicians. Similarly, Sukhmanjit Singh is the pick for Ranchi Rhinos for 11L. Uttar Pradesh Wizards have found promise in Pradeep Mor, for whom they shelled out 12L.

Similarly, less known but junior internationals, Vivek Dhar and Prabhdeep Singh, were taken by UP Wizards and Ranchi Rhinos, respectively, for 8L each.

The league is a hit for the Australians. As many as 15 Aussie players are on board. This is followed by 9 Dutchmen and 9 Pakistan players. 5 Spaniards, 3 Germans and a few English, Kiwi and South African players constitute the minor number of foreign face of the league.

Notably, Punjab Warriors captained by Jamie Dwyer has 6 Australian players; they have spent a whopping 43% of their money on these players.

Among the Indian team, Sardara at 42L and Raghunath at 41L are closely tied at the top. They also happen to be one of the highest paid players of the league (other in the top bracket are Tuen De Nooijer at 47L, German captain Fuertse Moritz at 45L, Jamie Dwyer at 42L and Ashley Jackson of England at 29L).

Amit Rohidas, a stand-bye, surely catches the eye when you see his value pecked at 16L.

No. Name USD Lakhs(in INR)


1 PR Sreejesh 38,000 21
2 PT Rao 17,000 9
3 VR Raghunath (Vice-Captain) 76,000 41
4 Rupinderpal Singh 56,000 30
5 Harbir Singh 18,000 10
6 Sardar Singh (Captain) 78,000 42
7 Kothajit Singh 33,000 18
8 Birendra Lakra 41,000 22
9 Manpreet Singh 61,000 33
10 Gurmail Singh 33,000 18
11 SV Sunil 42,000 23
12 Gurvinder Singh Chandi 50,000 27
13 Danish Mujtaba 63,000 34
14 S.K. Uthappa 25,000 14
15 Nithin Thimmaiah 27,500 15
16 Yuvraj Walmiki 18,500 10
17 Dharamvir Singh 52,000 28
18 Akashdeep Singh 17,000 9
746,000 403

1 Srenivas Rao – Goalkeeper 2,800 2
2 Sandeep Singh – Defender 64,400 35
3 Amit Rohidas- Defender 29,000 16
4 MB Aiyappa – Halfback 21,000 11
5 Shivendra Singh – Forward 27,500 15
6 Chinglensana Singh- Forward 22,000 12
7 Pradhan Sommanna- Forward 14,000 8
8 PL Thimmanna- Forward 4,650 3