A blind bid, a missed run — how Sosha Benninga initially found no takers at W-HIL auction, still ended up in India

The Egmond half-marathon on Sunday will have at least one runner by the name of Sosha Benninga missing in action during the flag-off.

On September 24, 2025, Sosha resigned to fate, having found no takers at the Hockey India League (or that’s what she initially thought). The Dutch forward had registered for the auction alongside her compatriots Noor de Baat and Floor de Haan.

Sosha, watching the auction even though she was supposed to be preparing for a job interview, couldn’t be happier when the Shrachi Bengal Tigers outbid the other franchises to acquire de Baat’s services for ₹14 lakh. But as nobody raised the paddle when de Haan and her name came up, she quietly accepted that her maiden India tour wasn’t happening. So much so that she went on to sign up for a half-marathon in Egmond aan Zee with her best friend.

Until a call from de Baat, a few hours later, left her utterly confused. “She was laughing on the phone and said, ‘Have you heard it already?’ I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ She said, ‘Yeah, you’re sold.’ I was like, ‘Wait, what?’ I was really confused for an hour because I hadn’t heard anything from the team.”

Half an assurance

Obviously, she had to seek clarification. A semblance of an assurance came from a rival team’s staff, who Sosha was in touch with. He not only confirmed that Sosha was India-bound for ₹5 lakh but also told her she would be playing for the same franchise as de Baat.

It turned out that franchises were given the option to fill up their remaining slots via a blind bidding process behind closed doors. Since it wasn’t streamed, Sosha was left in the dark.

‘I don’t understand it at all. But I think I might actually have been bought after all,’ Sosha would end up texting her Kampong clubmate Sander de Wijn. Earlier that day, de Wijn was roped in by the Tamil Nadu Dragons during the men’s auction for a generous sum of ₹36 lakh.

The confirmation eventually came when she was added to the Tigers’ WhatsApp group half-a-day later and everyone was asked to feed in their passport details. When she saw her name appear on the team’s official Instagram handle, she would have heaved a sigh of relief.

But there was still a lot Sosha didn’t know. The length of the competition, the number of matches she had to play, when she was supposed to travel and the best part… she had no idea who her coach was!

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Even as she was packing her bags, three months later, she couldn’t help but feel excited yet a little skeptical of venturing into the unknown. After all, she had heard of teams travelling on Sleeper-Class trains in the previous edition.

Three weeks into her trip now, Sosha says: “The whole experience is special. It’s my first time in India. I’m telling everyone that people here are so kind, amazing and friendly. The culture is very special. I am glad that I have been able to come here. And the amount, yeah, it’s super nice that it’s like a lot of money. I think Ranchi is a world apart from India. I’m glad we had some sightseeing opportunities in our first week. The (local) girls took us to some temples nearby and we went to Tagore Hill.”

However, some of the ‘not so nice’ things she heard about the tournament turned out to be true. “Everyone says there is no planning in India. So, things change often, and that happened on our very second day. We were supposed to take a train in the evening. And in the morning, our coach texted us saying we’re playing a game at 2pm. So, things like that are really funny, but the girls say it’s improved since last year. At least the bus is coming on time now. Earlier, they used to just wait for the bus, and it never came. So, I’m glad it is coming right now,” she tells Sportstar.

Hockey in the DNA

Born and raised in Amsterdam, Sosha comes from hockey royalty. Her father, Marc Benninga, was a Dutch international, who won the Olympic bronze medal in 1988. The mother, Ingrid Wolff, also had a distinguished career, playing for the Oranje Dames.

Not just that, her sister Djuna Benninga also plays hockey. Her older brother Noa Benninga is probably the only one who decided not to pick up the hockey stick. “My brother plays soccer. And although we have a picture of him holding a stick, it was always gonna be a soccer ball.” Noa, who used to be a youth footballer at Ajax, continued playing while studying at the University of Delaware in the United States.

Although dinner-table conversations would naturally veer to sport often, Sosha never felt any familial pressure. “I never felt like the pressure of having to be really good. But yeah, it is a family that loves any kind of sport. When I was younger, sometimes my parents used to be like, ‘Can I give you some advice?’ I used to be like, ‘No, I don’t want to know. I don’t want to hear it.’ But then when I grew up, I was more like, ‘Okay, what do you think of the match?’ And now, after every match, I’m found doing the same. I don’t ask for areas I can improve in, but I want to know what they think of the match. Sometimes, I think I’m being more critical than they are.”

Struggling with injuries

Despite having access to elite hockey infrastructure and the support of her near and dear ones, Sosha fell victim to the unavoidable – injuries. In 2019, as a Jong Oranje (U–21) Dames player with bright prospects, she missed the European U-21 Championship due to a cruciate ligament injury that marked the start of a pattern of knee issues. A severe knee trauma (cruciate, meniscus, and inner ligament) in September 2021 put an untimely end to her season. It not only prevented her from playing in the Junior World Cup in South Africa, but also sidelined her for almost 20 months of competitive hockey.

“I had only one target. It was to be fit again. Yes, of course it was hard. It was not like you’re sitting out just for one match and watching your team. It was like that for more than a year. Yeah, I had my best friends, and they helped me through the period. And, of course, my family. There were some girls in my team who also had an ACL (Anterior Cruciate Ligament) tear during that time. So, we had support.”

The injury wasn’t just physical — she had spoken about the psychological battle in an earlier interview with hockey.nl. “My mind wanted to do things my body didn’t. Sometimes, I went left when I wanted to go right. You naturally hope to pick up where you left off, but the reality was different. I no longer recognised myself as a player. In the beginning, you get a pat on the head. But at a certain point, people forget what happened, and you’re simply not as good as you were.”

After the winter break, Sosha could only play for Amsterdam’s second team. While she considered than an extension of her rehabilitation journey, she was desperate to get back to the top tier. A few phone calls later, she was ready to switch to the colours of SV Kampong for the coming season of Hoofdklasse, the Dutch top division in field hockey. Since then, there has been no looking back.

In fact, in 2024, she was one of the goalscorers for the Netherlands team that handed India a humiliating 7-2 defeat during the FIH Hockey5s World Cup final in Oman. In the same season, she emerged as the top goalscorer for her club, with 12 (nine field goals and three off penalty corners) to her name.

In April last year, Sosha became the toast of the entire Dutch hockey community after registering a hat-trick against Tilburg while playing for SV Kampong. What made it all the more special was that these marked her first three goals at De Klapperboom, her home pitch, since joining the Utrecht-based club in the summer of 2023. Before that she had got on the scoresheet 16 times, albeit in away conditions.

“There used to be like three clubs which were the best. There was Amsterdam [Sosha spent 17 years here], Den Bosch, and SCHC. But over the past two years, things changed in the league. Many prominent players switched clubs. The youngsters coming up are also really good. And now there’s been a kind of a switch. So, there are not just three teams anymore that are the best of the best. There are at least five (clubs) now which play to make the playoffs. The league is kind of changing now, which is better for the sport,” Sosha says, while trying to provide an idea of the domestic hockey structure in her country.

First impressions

The 25-year-old seemed rather unsure about what to make of her first impression of the HIL. “It’s hard because the team is so new. But I’m enjoying it. Everything seems different—the atmosphere, the field, and the style of play. There is more skill involved. You are also playing with people from different countries. To create a very good structure in such a short time, that’s very hard, but we’re doing really well. You will see how much we improved from our first match.” The Tigers have made the final, riding on the blistering form of Agustina Gorzelany, who also used to play for Amsterdam.

It kind of bothers Sosha that the league runs for only two weeks. Moreover, she believes the Indian national team players need to play each other more often. She says: “It’s a shame that the national team in India does not play that often with each other. In the Netherlands, we can train three times a week. And here they do the same for like just one month and then they are home for six weeks and then go back to the camp again. I think there’s a lot of potential for the Indian girls.”

Sosha quit her job as a Customer Success Manager at a firm only two days before sitting on the flight to India. A Communication Sciences graduate from the University of Amsterdam, Sosha is ‘in between jobs,’ as she would call it. She may be open to work, but her first job after flying back home, hopefully with the HIL gold medal wrapped around her neck, would be to drive back to her club.

“My focus will definitely be on Kampong. We’re having a really good first half of the season. I would love to play the playoffs and try to reach the final. It is my biggest target right now,” she signs off.

Published on Jan 10, 2026