Hockey India came up with a delightful mix of youthful exuberance and much-needed experience to begin their four-year cycle of preparations for the Tokyo Olympics as it announced the Indian Senior men's team for the 26th Sultan Azlan Shah Hockey Cup to be held at Ipoh in Malaysia from April 29 to May 6.
Announcing the team following the month-long camp in Bangalore on Tuesday, the governing body for hockey in India infused a whiff of fresh air into the composition of the team as a first step to explore and experiment a strong combination that would peak by the 2018 World Cup and strengthen by the Olympic year.
High-Performance Director of Indian hockey and Chief Coach of the men's team, Roelant Oltmans, stressed on the need to include the juniors to give them the right exposure with a vision of building a team that would be strong for the big two tournaments, the World Cup and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. A full-fledged Indian senior team won the silver medal last year after losing to a second-string Australian team in the final.
The top teams in hockey usually use the Sultan Azlan Shah to test their squads for the big tournaments and have been fielding second-string teams. However, India, who last won the tournament in 2009 and became the joint-winners with Korea in 2010, have been fielding their top men's team. Besides the hosts, defending champions Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain and Japan will take part in the 8-day tournament.
“The idea was to try out new combinations ahead of the three important tournaments this year. The World League semifinal and Asia Cup will be played before the League final takes place at Bhubaneswar in December 2017. We also play Belgium and Germany before we play the League semifinals and again we play Belgium and Holland in August. These are good opponents against whom we can test ourselves to access whether the players are achieving what we expect out of them,” explained Oltmans.
Belgium who were outside the top-10 teams, a decade ago, have made similar experiments and infused youth, which bore fruitful results in the last few years as they became a force to reckon with at the top.
Three players, Gurinder Singh, Sumit and Manpreet (junior), who were part of the Indian Junior team that regained the Junior World Cup after a gap of 15 years at Lucknow last year will be making their debut with the senior squad.
Manpreet, a product of the Sonepat STC (Sports Training Centre of SAI) in Haryana is not be confused with Manpreet Singh - so he is referred to as Junior. Three others Junior World Cuppers, who already made their senior debut to be part of this team are Harmanpreet Singh, Harjeet Singh and striker Mandeep Singh.
With ace drag-flicker, Raghunath out of the squad, Harmanpreet, the skipper of the winning Junior team, will be able to showcase his flicking skills along with more experienced Rupinderpal Singh. The trio were also part of the last year's silver-winning Indian team at Ipoh.
21-year-old Suraj Karkera, who toured England in 2016 with the junior squad, the EurAsia Cup in Russia and the four-nation tournament, will be the understudy to Sreejesh, with a long-term goal to groom goalkeepers.
Parattu Raveendran Sreejesh, the 28-year-old bubbling with the recent Padma Shri, is named as the captain and 24-year midfielder Manpreet Singh, a double Olympian, will be the vice-captain. Sreejesh will also have the services of former skipper and experienced Sardar Singh, talented Chinglensana Singh Kangujam, Harjeet Singh and Sumit. SV Sunil, Affan Yousaf, Talwinder Singh and Akashdeep Singh will spearhead the forward line along with dependable Mandeep Singh.
Besides drag-flickers Rupinder and Harmanpreet, Pradeep Mor, Gurminder Singh and Surinder Kumar will man the defence. Manpreet Singh (sr) is expected to play the pivotal role in the midfield, the role played by Sardara for many years. In turn, Sardara is likely to shuffle as a half and also join the forward line in attack as the strategy demands.
Talking about the mix of experienced players and juniors, chief coach Oltmans said: “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.”
The Dutchman, whose contract with Hockey India was extended till 2020 recently, is deliberating on a new structure for the team. “The new team will have its own challenges in the course of the tournament but the ultimate goal is to get the best results for the country. It will be interesting to see how these teams are developing and also assess our own progress.
“We need to pay attention to the structure we are looking for and it takes time to make everyone aware of what the demands of the structure are especially when new players are coming in. Though most of them are responding very well, I believe there will be some ups and downs in the tournament but the aim is to have the best possible result,” he concluded.
Notable names that are missing in the list are experienced midfielder Birendra Lakra, Ramandeep Singh, SK Uthappa and Nikkin Thimmaiah. Junior WC player, Dipsan Tirkey, who played a key role in Kalinga Lancers winning the league this year was expected to be in the squad but Oltmans said he is still not ready for the senior team and his time would come.
The 18-member squad: Goalkeepers: PR 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, Akashdeep Singh.
Coaching Staff: Chief coach: Roelant Oltmans, Analytical coach: Hans Streeder, Assistant coaches: Arjun Halappa and Jugraj Singh, Goalkeeper coach: Bharat Chetri, Physio: Rajeev Kumar Singh.
Teams for Sultan Azlan Shah Cup 2017: Malaysia, Australia, Great Britain, India, New Zealand, Japan.
India's schedule: April 29 vs Great Britain; April 30 vs New Zealand; May 2 vs Australia; May 3 vs Japan; May 5 vs Malaysia and the final and matches for minor placings will be on Saturday May 6. (Rest day: May 4).
