Hyderabad Heroes Enter inaugural Rugby Premier League
A Fresh Chapter in India's Sporting Renaissance
In the biryani city, the land of tech dreams and echoes of Deccani, a new rhythm now greets us from the turf. Not cricket bat clinks, but the rumble of boots against the grass. Not stadium cheers for IPL heroes, but the wild rhythm of warriors in action. Hyderabad Heroes, a newly established rugby team, will be charging onto India’s inaugural Rugby Premier League in June 2025.
While everyone is still saying, "Rugby? In India?", the reply comes with knuckles cracked and hearts beating: Yes, and it's here to stay.
The teams participating are Hyderabad Heroes, Delhi Redz, Kalinga Black Tigers, Chennai Bulls, Mumbai Dreamers and Bengaluru Bravehearts to be held in Mumbai from June 1 to 15.
They practice where the sun blazes off goal posts and dreams have the flavour of dust and adrenaline. The team is pieced together from past athletes, college dissidents, army cadets, and boys from the periphery of Telangana who learned how to run through walls before learning how to run round them. The Heroes are not just a team, though. They're a movement. A refusal of sporting elitism. A refusal of single-sport obsession. They wear bruises as medals and execute plays as poetry. Rugby is not a sport. It's theatre. It's resistance. It's choreography with bruises.
Behind the scenes, New Zealand's coaches and Indian Army legends collaborate under floodlights. The players rehearse off-camera, out of the glamour of sponsorship - but all this might be altered by this league. The Rugby Premier League seeks to bring fresh blood to India's sporting economy, placing a light on contact sports long in the shadow of cricket's glamorous monopoly. Across Mumbai the teams will battle each other in a televised competition that seeks to redraw the boundaries of Indian masculinity, team spirit, and national pride. And when the Hyderabad Heroes emerge onto the grounds, jerseys dripping with purpose, they do not play for points alone. They perform to be remembered.
