Hockey India on Sunday shortlisted 39 players for the coaching camp to be held from 21st August to 18th September at SAI Centre in Bengaluru in preparation of the Hangzhou Asian Games
Asian Games are scheduled from 23 September to 8 October in China. India who are placed in Pool A along with Pakistan, Japan, Bangladesh, Singapore, and Uzbekistan will open their campaign at Hangzhou against Uzbekistan on 24th September.
Players selected by Hockey India:
The players selected for the coaching camp includes goalkeepers Krishan Bahadur Pathak, PR Sreejesh, Suraj Karkera, Pawan, and Prasant Kumar Chauhan, and defenders Harmanpreet Singh, Jarmanpreet Singh, Surender Kumar, Varun Kumar, Amit Rohidas, Gurinder Singh, Jugraj Singh, Mandeep Mor, Nilam Sanjeep Xess, Sanjay, Yashdeep Siwach, Dipsan Tirkey, and Manjeet.
The midfielders called up to the camp include Manpreet Singh, Hardik Singh, Vivek Sagar Prasad, Moirangthem Rabichandra Singh, Shamsher Singh, Nilakanta Sharma, Rajkumar Pal, Sumit, Akashdeep Singh, Gurjant Singh, Mohd. Raheel Mouseen, Maninder Singh, while the list of forwards includes S. Karthi, Mandeep Singh, Lalit Kumar Upadhyay, Abhishek, Dilpreet Singh, Sukhjeet Singh, Simranjeet Singh, Shilanand Lakra, and Pawan Rajbhar.
What does Hockey India coach say?
Talking about the camp, chief coach Craig Fulton said, “Over the past few months, we have shown that we are growing as a team and learning constantly. The camp is an important one for us as we are spearheading our preparations for the Hangzhou Asiad which could be our road to securing a spot for the Paris Olympics 2024“.
“In the Hero Asian Champions Trophy Chennai , we played really good hockey and given the fact that we remained unbeaten in the tournament shows that we are heading in the right direction and we want to keep that going in upcoming tournaments.” he added
Captain Harmanpreet Singh opined: “The camp will be an opportunity for us to work in certain areas and to work together as a unit. We displayed solid team performance in the Hero Asian Champions Trophy and it is important for us to keep the same momentum going.”
India was unbeaten at the Hero Asian Champions Trophy winning their first game 7-2 against China, drawing 1-1 against Japan before beating Malaysia 5-0 and winning against South Korea 3-2. They defeated Pakistan 4-0 in a group-stage game. In the knockout round, India won against Japan 5-0 in the Semi-Finals and staged a remarkable comeback in the Final to win the match 4-3 and lift the title for the record fourth time.