India's men's and women's hockey teams will both feature in the sport's new home-and-away league, christened the Hockey Pro League, that will be held for the first time in January 2019.
The new league, which will replace the final stages of the World League after the 2018 season, will be played by nine teams across home and away venues, according to the International Hockey Federation (FIH). The 144 matches that will make the annual league will be played from January to June each year.
India will be joined by Argentina, Australia, Belgium, England/Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Pakistan -- who will play their 'home' matches in Scotland -- in the men's section. The women's league will see Argentina, Australia, China, England/Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the USA join India.
The World League was conceived and started in 2012 as a four-stage tournament to identify qualifiers for the Olympics and World Cup -- both of which are held within a gap of two years of each other in hockey. It will retain a similar format for round 1 and round 2, to be played among teams that will not feature in the Pro League. The FIH, however, confirmed that the winners of the continental federation events will qualify directly for the next Olympics in 2020.