FIH Player of the Year 2021-22: India’s Harmanpreet Singh wins men’s award

Indian hockey team star Harmanpreet Singh has been named the men’s FIH Player of the Year 2021-22 becoming just the fourth player to win the award in the men’s category in consecutive years. 

Harmanpreet Singh joins an elite list featuring Belgium’s Teun De Nooijer and Arthur van Doren and Australia’s Jamie Dwyer to take the honour in successive years. 

“I’m very honoured to receive this award for the second time in a row,” Harmanpreet Singh said. “It means a lot as awards like these help motivate me to improve my game. It’s a proud moment to play for your nation and win these awards.”

The Indian drag-flick specialist is a defender with a knack for breaking down opposition attacks. He also possesses great dribbling skills to carry the ball up the field.

The stats that primarily jump out for Harmanpreet Singh are the number of goals he scores. His goal-scoring ability has gone up a level this past year through his effective penalty corner drag flicks. His scoring record includes 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 FIH Pro League.

Harmanpreet was also in terrific form at the Asian Champions Trophy Dhaka 2021, where he scored eight goals in six games, scoring in every single game as India finished on the podium. His performances were also crucial to the Indian hockey team as it won the silver medal at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.

Harmanpreet tallied 29.4 points to fend off the Netherlands’ Thierry Brinkmann (23.6 points) and Belgium’s Tom Boon (23.4 points) to this year’s award.

Dutch player Felice Albers, meanwhile, was voted the winner in the women’s category.