A power-packed 18-member India's Men's Hockey squad has been announced for the upcoming Commonwealth Games (CWG) 2022 which is slated to begin from July 29 in Birmingham.
After Tokyo Olympics glory, Manpreet Singh has been given the onus to lead the pack once again while dragflick specialist Harmanpreet Singh, the highest goal scorer of the FIH Hockey Pro League, has been named as the vice captain of the team.
In the 2018 edition of the CWG, India finished fourth as they lost the bronze medal match 0-6 to England. However, this time they have been grouped in Pool B alongside England, Canada, Wales and Ghana, and will begin their campaign on July 31 against Ghana.
Hockey India (HI) had initially decided to send a second-string team to the CWG due to the short turnaround time between the Birmingham event and the Hangzhou Asian Games, which is a qualifier for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
However, with the Asian Games now postponed to next year owing to the Covid-19 situation in China, HI decided to pick a strong team for the prestigious event, scheduled to begin from July 28.
Speaking about the team selection, Chief Coach Graham Reid said, "We have gone with a tried-and-tested team for the Commonwealth Games. These players have the experience of playing top teams in high pressure games in the FIH Pro League which was a good exposure for us ahead of the prestigious quadrennial event."
"After a brief break when we return home from Netherlands, we will resume camp in SAI, Bengaluru where we will analyze our performance against Belgium and Netherlands. While there are many takeaways from this outing in FIH Pro League, there surely are a few areas that we can improve upon ahead of the Commonwealth Games," asserted Reid.
The squad:
Defenders: Varun Kumar, Surender Kumar, Harmanpreet Singh, Amit Rohidas, Jugraj Singh and Jarmanpreet Singh.
The midfielder: Manpreet Singh, Hardik Singh, Vivek Sagar Prasad, Shamsher Singh, Akashdeep Singh and Nilakanta Sharma.
Strikers: Mandeep Singh, Lalit Kumar Upadhyay, Gurjant Singh and Abhishek.