After an impressive outing in New Zealand where the Indian men’s hockey team tested their younger players, with four of them making their international debut, and even tasting confidence-boosting victories against Japan, hosts New Zealand as well as World No.3 Belgium, the team will return to the national camp, starting February 11 at the Sports Authority of India, Bengaluru.

It is a crucial year for the men’s team with major events lined up starting with the prestigious 27th Sultan Azlan Shah Cup 2018 between March 3 – March 10, followed by the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, starting on April 4.

While the Asian Games in August will be a litmus test where the team needs to defend their Gold Medal in order to qualify for the 2020 Olympic Games and retain the status of being Asia No.1. The year 2018 will also see the team play against top nations at the FIH Champions Trophy in Breda, Netherlands and at much-awaited Odisha Hockey Men’s World Cup Bhubaneswar 2018, starting in November.

While the next two weeks for chief coach Sjoerd Marijne will be about evaluating the team’s performance in New Zealand, he also needs to ensure his men are mentally fresh and ready to embrace the challenge of a grueling 2018 calendar. “The next two weeks will not just be about evaluating our performance in New Zealand but also to implement the changes to improve really fast. We have short time to ready the 18 players for Sultan Azlan Shah Cup but with a two-week break, I can expect the players to come back fresh and hungry for the ball,” expressed Sjoerd Marijne.

Emphasising on the need to stay focused on improving their game, Marijne said, “I don’t want the team to be busy with the things we cannot control such as outside pressure of winning. I want them to go match-by-match, tournament-by-tournament and embrace the challenge of playing big events. I need them to not just be physically at their 100 per cent but also mentally and for that we will work with players individually to ensure they are focused on their tasks and not be busy with the outcome (result). We will have individual and team sessions in our mental conditioning program,” he added.

At the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup, the team will play World. No 1 Australia, World No.2 Argentina as well as England, who are grouped with India at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

About playing these world-class teams, Marijne said, “It will be another opportunity to gauge how close we are coming to the best teams in the world. We just did well against World No.3 in both New Zealand and the Odisha Men’s Hockey World League Final Bhubaneswar 2017, now we play World No.1 and World. No.2 in March which will be yet another chance to gain knowledge about their different playing styles.”

Core Group:

Goalkeepers

1. Akash Anil Chikte
2. Suraj Karkera
3. P.R. Sreejesh
4. Krishan B Pathak

Defenders

5. Harmanpreet Singh
6. Amit Rohidas
7. Dipsan Tirkey
8. Varun Kumar
9. Rupinderpal Singh
10. Birendra Lakra
11. Surender Kumar
12. Gurinder Singh
13. Nilam Sanjeep Xess
14. Sardar Singh

Midfielders

15. Manpreet Singh
16. Chinglensana Singh
17. S.K. Uthappa
18. Sumit
19. Kothajit Singh
20. Satbir Singh
21. Nilakanta Sharma
22. Simranjeet Singh
23. Harjeet Singh

Forwards

24. SV Sunil
25. Akashdeep Singh
26. Mandeep Singh
27. Lalit Upadhyay
28. Gurjant Singh
29. Ramandeep Singh
30. Armaan Qureshi
31. Affan Yousuf
32. Talwinder Singh
33. Sumit Kumar