Harpal Singh Bedi
Versatile midfielder Manpreet Singh and ace striker Rani Rampaul will lead Indian Men’s and Women’s teams in the upcoming FIH Hockey Olympic Qualifiers scheduled to be played on 1st and 2nd November at the Kalinga Hockey Stadium in Bhubaneswar.
Hockey India also named SV Sunil. and Savita as the Vice-Captains of the men and women’s team respectively.
The two teams are scheduled to take part in the two-legged Qualifiers where the World No. 5 Men’s team will be up against World No. 22 Russia, while the World No. 9 Women’s Hockey Team will face World No. 13 USA.
The Indian Men’s Team comprises of Goalkeepers PR Sreejesh and Krishan Bahadur Pathak, while the outfield players named in the side include experienced drag-flicker Rupinderpal Singh, Harmanpreet Singh, Varun Kumar, Surender Kumar, Gurinder Singh, Amit Rohidas, Captain Manpreet Singh, Nilakanta Sharma, Hardik Singh, Vivek Sagar Prasad, Simranjeet Singh along with experienced attacking players in Lalit Kumar Upadhyay, Vice-Captain SV Sunil, Mandeep Singh, Akashdeep Singh, and Ramandeep Singh.
Men’s team’s Chief Coach Graham Reid spoke on the composition of his side, “After a good preparation tour in Belgium, it was always going to be a very difficult decision to pick the best 18 players for this tournament. We have chosen a well-balanced side with a number of good flexible options. We now need to focus on strategies against Russia, and ensure we are at our best when we step onto the field on 1st and 2nd November.”
Meanwhile, the Women’s team remained unchanged from their Tour of England. Experienced Goalkeepers Savita and Rajani Etimarpu will guard the goal, while drag-flicker Gurjit Kaur, Deep Grace Ekka, Reena Khokhar, Salima Tete, Namita Toppo, Sushila Chanu Pukhrambam, Nikki Pradhan, Monika, Neha Goyal, Lilima Minz, Captain Rani, Vandana Katariya, Navneet Kaur, Lalremsiami, Navjot Kaur and Sharmila Devi will serve as the outfield players.
“We have retained the 18-member team from our preparatory tour of England. We have a good balance and mixture of players in the squad and keeping in mind our objective of qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics 2020, I feel it is important to stay in the rhythm with the same players who performed well in the preparatory tour. We now focus on making sure that we leave no stone unturned when we take on the USA in the two matches,” said Women’s Hockeys Chief Coach Sjoerd Marijne.
The winners of the Qualifiers will book their berths for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.
The winners will be determined as follows: teams will be ranked according to the number of points each has accumulated in both matches (for each match, 3 points are awarded to the winner, 1 point to each team in the event of a draw and 0 points to the loser). If there is equality among the two teams, then the teams will be ranked according to their respective goal difference. If equality remains, a shoot-out competition will be played to establish the winner.
Therefore, the objective of both the Indian Men’s and Indian Women’s Hockey Teams will be to secure direct qualification for the Tokyo 2020 hockey tournaments – which will be staged in Japan’s capital city from 25 July to 7 August next year and involve 12 Men’s and 12 Women’s teams.