Hockey India names 30 members for senior men’s national camp

PTI, Oct 2, 2021, 11:57 AM IST

New Delhi:  Hockey India on Saturday named a 30-member core probable group for the senior men’s national coaching camp, to begin in SAI, Bengaluru from October 4.

After a successful campaign at the Tokyo Olympic Games where India clinched a historic bronze medal and ended a 41-year wait, the Indian men’s core group will begin the new Olympic cycle with an intent to improve upon this performance at Paris 2024.

The core grouped called up for the national coaching camp includes a mix of young and experienced players including P R Sreejesh, Krishan Bahadur Pathak, Suraj Karkera, Harmanpreet Singh, Dilpreet Singh, Surender Kumar, Gurinder Singh, Amit Rohidas and Manpreet Singh.

Speaking about the upcoming national coaching camp, chief coach Graham Reid said, “The players are coming off a long and well-deserved break. I believe they will be excited to be back in the National Camp and refocus on our goals for next year.

“We will be going through our performance in the Olympics both from the perspective of individual performances and as a team.”

He further emphasised that the players must leave behind the success of Tokyo and start fresh ahead of a hectic season in 2022.

“Experiencing success in the Olympics is great but now I want the players to be mentally and physically ready for a hectic season in 2022 with some very important tournaments starting from the FIH Hockey Pro League in February.

“This camp will be more about strength and conditioning and we will look at making a slow start.”

The group also features Hardik Singh, Nilakanta Sharma, Vivek Sagar Prasad, Simranjeet Singh, Akashdeep Singh, Mandeep Singh, Lalit Kumar Upadhyay, Gursahibjit Singh, Shamsher Singh, Varun Kumar, Jarmanpreet Singh, Dipsan Tirkey, Nilam Sanjeep Xess, Jaskaran Singh, Rajkumar Pal, Gurjant Singh, Sumit, Shilanand Lakra, Suman Beck, Mandeep Mor, Ashis Kumar Topno.