Indian senior men's hockey team arrive in Bhubaneshwar for national camp

The Indian men's hockey team arrived in Bhubaneshwar on Sunday to continue their national coaching camp as part of their preparations for the Asian Champions Trophy.

The 30-member Olympic bronze medal winning team will be camping in Bhubaneshwar till December 9. The Asian Champions Trophy will be played in Dhaka from December 14 to December 22.

Indian men's hockey team skipper Manpreet Singh, goalkeeper PR Sreejesh, manistays Harmanpreet Singh, Dilpreet Singh, Amit Rohidas, Surender Kumar, Nilakanta Sharma, Sumit, Hardik Singh, Simranjeet Singh, Gurjant Singh, Mandeep Singh, Shamsher Singh, Lalit Kumar Upadhyay and Varun Kumar among others are a a part of the camp.

Read: Trying to instill some values of the senior team into the juniors, says India men's hockey coach Graham Reid

The Indian men's junior team captain Vivek Sagar Prasad will join the Indian men's senior team's national camp after his campaign with the Indian junior hockey team at the Hockey Men's Junior World Cup, which concludes on December 5.

Hockey team gets down to business ahead of packed season

The senior men's national camp in Bhubaneshwar will help the Indian men's junior hockey team in their preparations for the Junior World Cup.

The Indian junior men's team will play practice matches against the Indian men's senior team as part of their last-minute competitive preparedness for the World Cup.

Speaking about the national camp, Indian senior men's hockey team chief coach Graham Reid said:

"It would be good to have the senior men's team train in Bhubaneswar as the weather here is almost similar to that of Dhaka. It would be great for the team to train in these conditions and get acclimatized. We will also be playing a few internal matches between the senior and junior core probables that will surely help in our preparations for the Junior World Cup."

The chief coach said winning the Asian Champions Trophy will put the team in good stead ahead of a packed season next year.

"The season next year will be busy for the senior squad with back-to-back major international tournaments and it will be great to kick off the year by defending the Asian Champions Trophy. We had a good camp in SAI, Bengaluru, before the team went on a short break for Diwali and I believe this break would have done the players a lot of good to return to the camp feeling fresh mentally."

The Asian Champions Trophy will be held from December 14 to December 22 and will see defending champions India, Pakistan, Korea, Japan, Malaysia and hosts Bangladesh in the fray.