Hockey India selects 25 players for national camp to be held in Bhubaneswar

Ahead of the ten-day Asian Champions Trophy which will begin on October 18 in Muscat, Oman, the Indian team will look forward to honing their skills after their recent debacle at the Asian Games in Indonesia. The Indian team ended their campaign with a Bronze Medal after beating Pakistan, but their loss to Malaysia in the semis was not up to the level. The squad will be looking at overcoming the setback and regroup with fresh perspective ahead of the Asian Champions Trophy and the upcoming World Cup.

Among mid-fielders, Manpreet Singh, Chinglensana Singh, Sumit, Simranjit Singh, Nilakanta Sharma, Hardik Singh, Lalit Upadhyay, and Vivek Sagar Prasad have been selected. The forwards who have made the cut are SV Sunil, Akashdeep Singh, Gurjant Singh, Mandeep Singh, Dilpreet Singh and Sumit Kumar.

"The idea of training in Bhubaneswar was to get acclimatized and we are also looking at playing on the newly-laid turf at the Kalinga Hockey Stadium which will host the Hockey Men's World Cup 2018. This is a very important phase in the lead up to the season Finale starting on November 28 and we intend to critically analyse our mistakes during the 18th Asian Games not just in our match against Malaysia but the other matches too," emphasized Harendra.

"Asian Champions Trophy will be one tournament where we will be executing the changes made during this National Camp which is why the tournament in Oman will be very important for us."