HIL helped me overcome fear, says Harmanpreet Singh

Since its inception in 2013, the Hockey India League has provided a great platform to upcoming junior talent in the country. It provides youngsters a rare opportunity to rub shoulders with international stars. Consequently, the league has helped discover several junior players, who made the country proud with their recent triumph at the Junior Hockey World Cup in Lucknow.

Dragflicker Harmanpreet Singh is one such discovery, who plays for Dabang Mumbai — a team comprising 2012 Olympic gold medallist from Germany Florian Fuchs, Australia’s Kieran Govers and David Harte of Ireland.

The exposure helped him get over the fear of playing against some of the toughest opponents. “Getting to play against top players like Mark Knowles or Moritz Fuerste would also mean that I would have to get rid of the fear of playing against great players,” recalls Harmanpreet of his first HIL outing.

“Initially, even the thought would make me nervous but I think constant interactions with players within my team like Florian made me more confident. The foreign players are very encouraging and they don’t hesitate in correcting our mistakes. Personally, for me, this made a lot of difference especially when I got a chance to play with the senior squad and faced tough opponents in the FIH Champions Trophy and in the Rio Olympics and the recent Junior World Cup in Lucknow, I knew I had nothing to fear against the top teams and that I must just stick to my game,” he said.

Harmanpreet further added that every foreign player comes with his own style of play and the new combinations the teams in HIL try helps them when they play for the national squad. “Usually when we play different national teams, the coach brings in different tactics based on that particular opponent’s plus and minuses. Our planning for the Junior World Cup was also executed similarly and due to our exposure in the HIL where we learn to adapt to different variations in a very short span of time it just became a lot easier for us to execute the plans coach Roelant Oltmans had for us,” Harmanpreet said.

Meanwhile, for Gurjant Singh who is also part of Dabang Mumbai and was adjudged the man of the match in the final of the Junior Cup, HIL taught him how to cope with pressure. “Playing in front of big crowds can be very intimidating and it can also sometimes inflict self-imposed pressure. But I think the experience in HIL helped us cope with such an atmosphere because at the Junior World Cup, the supporters turned out in great numbers and would chant loud cheers, so loud that sometimes we can’t hear the calls by our own team mates. But we learnt to deal with that through HIL,” said the lanky forward.

The Hockey India League is slated to begin on 21 January 2017 in Mumbai.