Four new players selected for Azlan Shah Cup

Hockey India on Tuesday announced the senior men’s hockey team who will represent the country at the 26th Sultan Azlan Shah Cup to begin in Ipoh, Malaysia from April 29.

Ahead of the national camp for the senior men’s core probable group, chief coach Roelant Oltmans had emphasized on giving juniors the right exposure with a vision of building a team that would bring laurels in the 2018 World Cup and 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

As a first step towards that goal, the chief coach has inducted four young players from the Indian Junior men’s team. While defender Gurinder Singh, midfielders Sumit and Manpreet who were part of the junior World Cup winning squad are slated to make their debut at the 26th Sultan Azlan Shah Cup, 21-year-old goalkeeper from Mumbai Suraj Karkera who was part of the junior squad that toured England in 2016 and participated in the EuroAsia Cup in Russia and the Four-Nation tournament last year too finds his name in the team.

The team also features drag flicker Harmanpreet Singh, junior World Cup winning skipper Harjeet Singh and forward Mandeep Singh. The trio, who were instrumental in the Indian team’s success at the Junior World Cup, have played at the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in the previous edition where India won a silver after losing to Australia in the final. 

“The idea was to try out new combinations ahead of the three important tournaments



this year, which are the World League Semi Final, Asia Cup and the Odisha Men’s Hockey League Final Bhubaneswar 2017.

The team will be led by India’s ace goalkeeper P.R Sreejesh who was recently conferred with the Padma Sri award. Midfielder Manpreet Singh will be his deputy and he will be joined by the experienced Sardar Singh, Chinglensana Singh Kangujam, Harjeet Singh, Sumit and Manpreet in the midfield.

Oltmans further said they will bring a team to Malaysia which is a mixture of experienced and young players some of whom have played in the senior squad earlier. “It is a challenge for us to see where we stand with the new team combination compared to other teams like Australia, Great Britain and New Zealand. They also will bring new players. I don’t expect Malaysia and Japan to have too many changes in their teams and I think they play the same players as they did at the Asian Champions Trophy last October,” said Oltmans.

Squad:

Goalkeepers: P.R. Sreejesh (captain), Suraj Karkera

Defenders: Pardeep Mor, Surender Kumar, Rupinderpal Singh, Harmanpreet Singh, Gurinder Singh

Midfielders: Chinglensana Singh Kangujam, Sumit , Sardar Singh, Manpreet Singh (vice-captain), Harjeet Singh, Manpreet

Forwards: SV Sunil, Talwinder Singh, Mandeep Singh, Affan Yousuf and Akashdeep Singh