Bhubaneswar: Ace players from India’s historic Olympic bronze medal-winning men’s hockey team will arrive in Bhubaneswar, Odisha today for the ongoing National Coaching Camp, which had began on November 10 as part of their preparations for the Asian Champions Trophy in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
The Indian Men’s Hockey Core Probable Group of 30 will camp in Bhubaneswar until December 9th.
The group of 30 include key players like Manpreet Singh and PR Sreejesh who had been conferred with the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna award on Saturday in New Delhi along with Harmanpreet Singh, Dilpreet Singh, Amit Rohidas, Surender Kumar, Nilakanta Sharma, Sumit, Hardik Singh, Simranjeet Singh, Gurjant Singh, Mandeep Singh, Shamsher Singh, Lalit Kumar Upadhyay who were all honoured with Arjuna award for their historic contribution in Tokyo Olympics. Another Arjuna awardee Vivek Sagar Prasad will also join the will join the Senior Men’s Camp after his campaign with the India Colt’s team at the FIH Odisha Hockey Men’s Junior World Cup concludes on 5 December.
The Olympic stars will join the rest of the core group members who reported in Bhubaneswar on November 10.
“It will be good to have the Senior Men’s team train in Bhubaneswar as the weather here is almost similar to that of Dhaka. It will 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 the Junior core probables that will surely help in our preparations for the Junior Men’s World Cup,” said Chief Coach Graham Reid while speaking about the National Coaching Camp.
“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,” added Chief Coach Reid.
The Asian Champions Trophy will be contested from December 14 to December 22 and will include reigning champions India, Pakistan, Korea, Japan, Malaysia, and hosts Bangladesh.
Senior Men’s Core Group:
Goalkeeper
1. PR Sreejesh
2. Krishan B Pathak
3. Suraj Karkera
Defender
4. Harmanpreet Singh
5. Amit Rohidas
6. Surender Kumar
7. Varun Kumar
8. Gurinder Singh
9. Jarmanpreet Singh
10. Nilam Sanjeep Xess
11. Dipsan Tirkey
12. Mandeep Mor
13. Ashis Kumar Topno
14. Suman Beck.
Midfielder
15. Manpreet Singh
16. Nilakanta Sharma
17. Sumit
18. Hardik Singh
19. Jaskaran Singh
20. Raj Kumar Pal
Forward
21. Simranjeet Singh
22. Gurjant Singh
23. Mandeep Singh
24. Shamsher Singh
25. Lalit Kumar Upadhyay
26. Akashdeep Singh
27. Gursahibjit Singh
28. Shilanand Lakra
29. Dilpreet Singh
