Sandeep Singh named captain of the hockey team

Resting all speculations, Sandeep Singh was named the new captain of the Indian hockey team by the ad hoc selection committee led by Ajit Pal Singh on Friday.

Sandeep’s appointment comes after the ad hoc committee decided to hand over the responsibility to a younger player, keeping in mind the long term ambitions of the team.

“We had to bear in mind the 2010 World Cup and Commonwealth Games and the 2012 Olympics. Sandeep is one of the better players in the team and is an ideal choice for this post,” coach-in-charge Harendra Singh said. Other names in contention were Tushar Khandekar and Rajpal Singh.

Speaking to DNA from the on-going national camp at Bhopal, Sandeep said 2009 is the year of reckoning for Indian hockey. “This is a very crucial year for us, we are playing a couple of tournaments at home in front of our own people and by playing well we want to show them that we are a good side.”

Sandeep, who replaces Prabodh Tirkey as the skipper, stressed that even though team failed to qualify for the Olympics, it doesn’t mean that India is not a good team.

The men’s team will be leaving for the four-Test series in Argentina on January 13 and according to Sandeep, the performance of the juniors couple of weeks ago against the Argentines will inspire them to do well.

“If they (juniors) can, why can’t we? They have proven that it is not difficult to beat Argentina in their own backyard and we will try to emulate the same result,” Sandeep said. The colts defeated Argentina 1-0 in a recently concluded Test series.