PR Sreejesh Out of Action For At Least 5 Months, to Miss Asia Cup

Indian hockey goalkeeper PR Sreejesh will be out of action for at least five months following a knee surgery, which effectively means he will miss the Asia Cup to be held in Dhaka in October.

Sreejesh, who missed the recently-concluded Hockey World League Semi-Final in London, went under the knife earlier this month in Mumbai after he sustained a ligament tear in his right knee during the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in April-May this year.

According to India hockey's High Performance Director David John, Sreejesh will take at least five months to return to full fitness, which means he has a bright chance of playing in the year-ending Hockey World League Final to be held in Bhubaneswar in December.

We missed Sreejesh badly. Vikas Dahiya and Akash Chikte are young and they are no match for top



goalkeepers of the world. We need to develop our second line of keepers in the next six months. Sreejesh is out of action. He underwent a surgery under Dr Anant Joshi 10 days back in Mumbai and he will need at least 5 to 6 months to return to full fitness. David John to PTI

"Sreejesh will definitely miss the Asia Cup but we will try our best to make him fully fit before the all-important Hockey World League Final in December. But it also gives us time to work with and develop our reserve keepers," he said.

Being the High Performance Director, John has analysed India's lacklustre outing in the HWL Semi-Final in London.

We need to work on our defence. We need to find some faster defenders because in London we were caught in counter-attacks by Malaysia and Canada for lack of speed.