Indian team leaves for the June 7-21 Junior World Cup.
The Indian junior men’s hockey team has been quite consistent in recent months in contrast to the seniors. No wonder then that the new chief national coach Jose Brasa will be watching the team in action in the Junior World Cup to be jointly hosted by Singapore and Malaysia from June 7 to 21.
“Brasa will be there to watch our players virtually through the tournament. After all, we have been doing well and are hoping for a good finish,” said coach AK Bansal as the team prepared to leave from here on Tuesday night.
“In the end, a good performance will augur well for the future of hockey in the country,” said Bansal, about the Indian Colts, who are the Asian junior champions and also did well in away matches in Argentina, Australia and Malaysia earlier this year.
India, who won the Cup at Hobart in Australia in 2001, finished fourth in the last edition at Rotterdam in Netherlands in 2005. India’s second best performance came at Milton Keynes in England in 1997, when they finished runners-up.
“I would not like to commit on what position we are aiming for. All I would like to say is that we have worked hard for two years and our recent performances point towards a good performance,” said Bansal, warning that the preliminary league of the three-stage competition could be a testing one.
India open their campaign against Singapore in a group D match on June 8. The other teams in the group are the Netherlands, Poland and New Zealand. The top two teams from each group will make it to the quarterfinal league, which will be followed by the semifinals and final.
“The team has settled down well over the past few months at the camp in Bhopal and we are hoping that drag-flicker Diwakar Ram, along with strikers Danish Mujtaba and Mandeep Antil, will help win crunch matches with their striking abilities,” said Bansal.
“We have two practice matches against Chile and Germany (June 4 and 5) apart from a few that we have planned amongst ourselves. It will be a good time to test the surface there because according to the reports that we have got, they are likely to be bouncier and we will need to adjust to them fast,” he added.
As many as 20 teams are participating in the ninth edition of the tournament, which will be held at Seng Kang Sports and Recreation Centre, Singapore, and Taman Daya Stadium in Johor Bahru, Malaysia.
Squad
Goalkeepers: Mrinal Choubey, Harjit Singh
Full backs: Diwakar Ram (captain), Innocent Kullu, Manjeet Kullu
Midfielders: Birendra Lakra, Amardeep Ekka, Vikas Sharma, Vivek, Belsajar Horo, Vikas Pillay
Forwards: Mandeep Antil, Danish Mujtaba, Jay Karan, Pramod Kumar, Mohammed Amir Khan, Victo Singh, Dharamvir Singh
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