The craze of hockey in India is reaching to climax with every passing day. With the country's men's and women's hockey teams are gearing up for the Asian Games 2023, they will look to elevate their places in the world FIH rankings with good performances.
Currently, India's men's hockey team is sitting in the third spot in the FIH rankings with 2771.35 points, just behind the Netherlands and Belgium, who have 3112.74 and 2988.58 points, respectively.
Harmanpreet Singh and Co. rose to third place earlier this month thanks to their triumph at the Asian Champions Trophy, which recently took place in Chennai. They re-entered the top three after a long hiatus of almost a year.
They last faced off against Malaysia in the Asian Champions Trophy final. Although it was a closely contested match, India managed to close their campaign with a 4-3 win.
India women's hockey team's international FIH rankings
As far as India's women's hockey team is concerned, they are currently placed seventh as per the latest update of FIH rankings.
India have achieved this ranking under Savita Punia, who replaced Rani Rampal as the captain of the side for an indefinite period. Notably, Rani has been axed from India's probables for the Asian Games.
The Indian women's hockey team has 2324.56 points under its belt. They are behind the Netherlands, Australia, Argentina, Belgium, Germany, and England, respectively, and are followed by Spain, New Zealand, and Japan in the top 10.
In the most recent encounter, they squared off against Spain in the 2023 4 Nations Women's Invitational Tournament (Barcelona) and emerged victorious by a scoreline of 3-0.
The men's hockey team will get their 2023 Asian Games campaign underway on September 24 while the women's team's games are scheduled to begin a day later.