64th Rangaswamy Cup

The 64th Rangaswamy Senior Men’s Indian national hockey championship will commence from today at the KSHA Hockey Stadium, Bangalore. The six zonal champions will compete to claim this trophy. The tournament will start on the 8th of May and end on 16 May. The six zonal champions are Punjab(North), Uttar Pradesh(Central), Manipur(North East), Jharkhand (East), Karnataka(South), and Mumbai(West). The event was last held in 2010 at Bhopal, where Mumbai was crowned champion.

Introduced in 1928, this tournament used to be an inter-provincial tournament meant to pick players for the Olympics. The first edition of the event was won by United Provinces. They had defeated Rajputana 3-1 in final held at Calcutta, and the legendary Dhyanchand was a part of United Provinces. Since 1935, the winners are presented a shield, which was gifted by New Zealand’s Maori’s tribe to the visiting Indian team. However, this trophy went to Pakistan after partition. In 1951, the Hindu Group gifted the present Rangaswamy Cup trophy. The Indian Railways has won the title for a maximum 21 times.This will be 64 th edition of this trophy. The first match will see south zone champion and host Karnataka pitted against West zone champions Mumbai at KSHA Hockey Stadium,Bangalore. Teams affiliated to Hockey India are not taking part as the event is being organised by IHF.