Indian men’s hockey team achieves all-time highest ranking

India’s excellent form in the first three rounds of the second edition of the FIH Hockey Pro League has seen the team move up a place to fourth.

India’s rise comes at the expense of Olympic champion Argentina, which dropped to the fifth place.

The Indian men’s hockey team achieved its all-time highest ranking when it climbed up a place to fourth in the recently released FIH world rankings.

India’s excellent form in the first three rounds of the second edition of the FIH Hockey Pro League has seen the team move up a place from fifth in the rankings, a system that was introduced in 2003.

India’s rise comes at the expense of Olympic champion Argentina, which dropped to the fifth place.

World champion Belgium — which in January defeated Australia in Sydney to wrestle top spot from its opponent — remains in pole position, with the Kookaburras (2nd) and the Netherlands (3rd) also holding their positions in the top three.

Germany and England remain in sixth and seventh position, respectively, while New Zealand, which has earned two wins in its last three FIH Hockey Pro League matches, is static at eighth place after briefly dropping below Spain to ninth last month.

In the women’s list, India occupies the ninth spot. The Netherlands is at the top followed by Australia, Argentina, Germany and England.

The new model for calculating the FIH world rankings was introduced on January 1 2020, moving away from the previous tournament-based rankings system to a dynamic, match-based model where opposing teams exchange points in official, FIH sanctioned games.

The number of points exchanged depends on the result of the match, the relative ranking of the teams and the importance of the match.