Asian Champions Trophy Hockey: Indian Men's Team Announced

The Indian men’s team for inaugral Asian Champions Trophy Hockey tournament has been announced today. Rajpal Singh will lead the team in the absence of Arjun Halappa in the tournament that is to be held in Ordos, China next month. India will be missing the services of Arjun Halappa, Shivendra Singh, Tushar Khandekar, Bharat Chikara, Dharamvir Singh and Dhananjay Mahadik due to injuries.

Shivendra Singh has not recovered from his life-threatening collarbone injury while Tushar Khandekar and Dhananjay Mahadik are out due to ankle injuries. Another notable absentee from the team is of striker Bharat Chikara who is out of action for more than six months due to knee injury.

Experienced campaigners like forward Prabhjot Singh, midfielder vikram Pillay and goalkeeper Adrain D’souza were not selected in team announced today.

The 18 member squad was selected by Hockey India selectors and Government observer. India’s coach Michael Nobbs said that he was satisfied by the team selected by the board and added that the team is selected looking at the Champions Trophy in December.

Following is the Men’s team for Asian Champions Trophy.

Goalkeepers: Bharat Chetri and PR Sreejesh

Defenders: Sandeep Singh, Rupinder Pal Singh and Harpreet Singh

Midfielders: Sardar Singh, Gubaj Singh, Ignace Tirkey, Manpreet Singh and Manjit Kullu

Forwards: Rajpal Singh (C), Danish Mujtaba, SV Sunil, Sarvanjit Singh, Ravi Pal Singh, Gurvinder Singh Chandi, Roshan Minz and Yuvraj Valmiki

Apart from the 18 member squad, the selectors have also named some stand-by players in case of injuries or pullouts

Standby: Kamalpreet Singh (GK), VR Raghunath (Def), Vikas Sharma (Mid), Biren Lakra (Mid), Mandip Antil (Fwd), Chinglensana Singh Kangujam (Fwd).