Indian team to defend the Asia Cup has been announced. Sandeep Singh will lead the Indian side in the seventh Asia Cup to be held at Kuantan, Malaysia from 09 – 16 May 2009.

According to a press release of the IOA Adhoc Committee on hockey, a selection trial was conducted at the training camp at Bhopal, where the camp was under progress, on 24 April.

Not only the Sandeep Singh in his leadership chair, but also victorious manager Dhanraj Pillay have also been retained, perhaps not to disturb the winning combination. Dhanraj was the manager when India won the Azlan Cup last fortnight.

India are the defending champions of the Asia Cup, will look to strike a golden hat trick at Kuantan.

India previously won the titles at Kuala Lumpur in 2003 and Chennai in 2007.

The winner of the Asia Cup will get an automatic entry to the World Cup at New Delhi in March 2010.

This is first time Asia Cup comes on board after two years. Since the genre of competition came into being in 1982, it has been a four-year affair.

There are four changes from the squad that won the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup at Ipoh earlier this month. V.Raghunath, Vikram Pillay, Rajpal Singh and Hari Prasad return to the side after missing the Azlan Shah Gold, and it is at the cost of Ignace Tirkey, Sarwanjit Singh, Bharat Chhikara and Shivendra Singh. Shivender is said to be suffering from a shoulder injury.

Reasons for exclusion of Ignace is yet to ascertained.

Goalkeepers

Baljit Singh
Adrian D’Souza

Full Backs

Sandeep Singh (Captain)
Dilip Tirkey
V.Raghunath

Midfielders

Gurbaj Singh
Sardar Singh
Ajitesh Roy
Vikram Pillay
Prabodh Tirkey
V.S.Vinaya

Forwards

Tushar Khandker
Rajpal Singh
Prabhjot Singh
S.V.Sunil
Arjun Halappa
Hari Prasad
Gurvinder Singh Chandi

Standbyes

P.R.Sreejesh
Sarwanjit Singh
Bharat Chhikara
Shivendra Singh

Officials

Harendra Singh (Coach Incharge)
Ramandeep Singh (Coach)
Romeo James (Coach)
Shrikant Iyengar (Physiotherapist)
Pradeep Dutta (Trainer)
A.Narendra Kumar (Video Analyst)
Dhanraj Pillay (Manager)