Significant contribution of Foreign players in the ongoing Hockey India League; semifinal tomorrow

Hero Hockey India League is on its business end. Action filled 34 days witnessed 40 matches across two venues. However, fans had to wait for the last two matches to know the last two semifinalists, showing how close and suspenseful has been the League. Tamil Nadu, Soorma, Hyderabad and Bengal will fight for medals. Soorma & Dragons wanted a point from their last match and they got it after much sweat.

Remaining four teams (Delhi, Kalinga, UP & Sonasika) will be returning to home hoping for better performance in the next season.

11 out of 14 UK players, 6 /14 Australians, 5/12 Belgians are among the 32 foreign players who will not be in action in this edition. Interestingly, the outgoing foreign stars accounted for 65% of their teams’ scores (56/88). Tournament’s top scorer Thierry Brinkman (10 goals) in particular will be missed.  The intensity of the competition was such that such stars as Thierry (The Netherlands), Alexander Hendrickx (Belgium), Oliver Payne (England) could not bring their team to top four.

Thank you the  likes of Thierry, Tomas Domene, Aran, Alexander Hendrickx, Sam Ward, Victor Charlet (6’5″ tall, weighing 90 plus kg) for coming and gracing the renewed HIL, giving your best on our soils. James Mazerelo, Oliver Payne….the list is too long to complete.

The bottom three teams had concentration of players from one nation (4 or 5). Does it say anything? Hidden message may be spread your team. From this perspective the Toofans team’s composition is interesting; it embraced most nations (6) to fulfil their quota of 8!