Highlights
- Harmanpreet Singh is India's vice-captain
- His performance at the 2022 edition of CWG was crucial for India
- Harmanpreet celebrated the win with his family
India star defender Harmanpreet Singh was named the FIH Player of the Year in the men's category on Friday. He won the title for the second successive time.
The 26-year-old became just the fourth player to win the Player of the Year award (men’s category) in consecutive years.
The other three players in the elite list are as follows:
- Teun De Nooijer (Netherlands)
- Jamie Dwyer (Australia)
- Arthur van Doren (Belgium)
"Harmanpreet Singh is a bona fide modern-day hockey superstar. He is a terrific defender with a knack for being at the right place at the right time to break down the opponent’s offense," FIH said in a statement.
"He has great dribbling skills to carry the ball up the field from the defense. And he scores goals, goals, and more goals! To add to that impressive resume, he has now been voted the FIH Player of the Year, for the second year running."
Harmanpreet's total points tally stood at 29.4 points, followed by Thierry Brinkmann with 23.6 points and Tom Boon with 23.4 points.
The India vice-captain has scored an incredible 18 goals from 16 games, with two hat-tricks, in the FIH Hockey Pro League 2021-22.
With those 18 goals, he ended the season as the top scorer for India and now holds the record for the most goals scored by a player in a single season of the Pro League.
At the Asian Champions Trophy last year in Dhaka, Harmanpreet scored 8 goals in 6 games, scoring in every single game as India finished on the podium.
His performances were also crucial to the Indian team that won a silver medal at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.
Who won in the women's category?
Felice Albers of the Netherlands was named the FIH Player of the Year. The 22-year-old became the youngest winner of the FIH Player of the Year award (women’s category) since Germany's Natascha Keller (1999).
(Inputs from PTI)
