India captain Harmanpreet Singh is starting to find his radar, with three goals in his last two games. (PHOTO: Hockey India League)
With two significant results on Wednesday in Rourkela, each of the eight men’s teams in the Hockey India League has now played four matches.
While the initial stages of the tournament saw two early frontrunners in Shrachi Rarh Bengal Tigers and UP Rudras, over the last two days, both of them suffered significant defeats against the team that started the match at the foot of the table. The result? Four games in, the table looks tight and competitive, with only Delhi SG Pipers yet to win a match outright and all teams having lost at least once either in a shootout or in regulation time.
On Tuesday, Kalinga Lancers produced arguably the performance of the tournament so far as they put six past Tigers to end their perfect winning start. A day later, Hyderabad Toofans came up with a clinical 3-0 win against the Rudras to register their first three-point haul of the tournament.
Here’s a look at the league table:
Hockey India League 2025 standings after Day 12 (January 8) with 16 games being played.
The biggest takeaway so far is that the fight for top four is going to be close. With no team either pulling away completely or struggling for form badly, the next couple of rounds are likely to paint a clearer picture. Teams didn’t get a lot of time to practice together before the league began at the end of last year, so the connections are likely to get better between the Indians and international stars. This is where, perhaps Lancers and Tamil Nadu Dragons could be the teams to watch out for in the coming days. Lancers, who built a squad without going beyond Rs 38 lakh for any player, have serious international goalscoring threat and after a slow start, Thierry Brinkman and Alexander Hendrickx are starting to show their class. Likewise for Dragons, with Jip Janssen starting to step up.
Here are the top goalscorers so far:
Hockey India League 2025 top goal scorers list after Day 12 (January 8) with 16 games being played.
Two Dutchmen are leading the way with four goals each: both Brinkman and Janssen have registered a hat-trick each already are currently on four goals. After a slow start to the tournament, laid low by an illness, India captain Harmanpreet Singh is starting to find his radar, with three goals in his last two games. Also on three goals are Indian drag-flicker Jugraj Singh, Belgian ace Hendrickx and Argentina’s Tomas Domene.
Among the team scoring chart, Lancers (helped by that 6-0 win) lead the way with 12 goals while Gonasika and Dragons are on 11 each. Rudras have the tightest defence having conceded 6 goals, but have lost two on the trot now and need to arrest the slide. While the first eight matches of the tournament witnessed four draws that needed shootouts, there has been only regulation time draw in the next eight matches.
Indians to have impressed so far
On the goalscoring chart, apart from the two top dragflickers in Harmanpreet and Jugraj, six different Indian players have scored two goals so far. Among them, Sukhjeet Singh (Tigers), Araijeet Singh Hundal (Gonasika) and Sudeep Chirmako (Rudras) have looked sharp in leading the lines for their sides. The now-retired Rupinder Pal Singh also made a good start to the tournament, with two goals for Tigers and some solid defensive play. Elsewhere, Lancers’ Dilpreet Singh, Tigers’ Jaskaran Singh and Toofans’ Rajinder Singh have caught the eye.
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