Prabhjot Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh’s mercurial forward Rajpal Singh has been elevated as skipper of Indian hockey team for the Champions Challenge I tournament to be played in Salta, Argentina, from December 6 to 13.

He replaces Sandeep Singh who led India to 6-0 win over Canada in the seven-Test series. Besides the recall of Deepak Thakur, the selectors have virtually retained the same squad that had won the seven Test series against Canada last month.

Other than Deepak Thakur, new faces in the squad are Ajitesh Roy (a stand by for Canadian tour) and Vikas Sharma. Amir Khan, SV Sunil, Dharambir Singh and Birender Lakra Sr have failed to retain their places in the enlarged experimental squad.

After the training of the team was taken over by Spaniard Jose Brasa, India has been experimenting with different sets of combination of players by packing in its squads varying number of deep defenders, midfielders and forwards.

If three deep defenders, six midfielders and 11 forwards comprised the squad for the Canadian tour, Brasa and his men are now taking seven deep defenders, six midfielders and seven forwards to Argentina.

Brasa is experimenting with “complete hockey” where any player can be asked to perform any duty on the playfield, be it a defender or a midfielder or even a forward.

Challenging India for a berth in the 2010 Champions Trophy will be seven other national teams, including Pakistan, New Zealand, Belgium, China, hosts Argentina, Canada, and South Africa. Only winners of the tournament will be elevated to the elite Champions Trophy group.

Belgium, China and New Zealand are the other teams in India’s pool while the remaining four teams are in pool B. The team: Adrian D’Souza and PR Sreejesh (goalkeepers), Sardar Singh, Sandeep Singh, Gurbaj Singh, Bharat, Ajitesh Roy, D Mahadik and V Raghunath (deep defenders), T Khandekar, A Halappa, Vikram Pillay, Roshan Minz, D Mujtaba and Vikas Sharma (midfielders), Rajpal Singh (Captain), Gurvinder Singh Chandi, Shivendra Singh, Deepak Thakur, Sarwanjit Singh, Mandeep Antil and Prabhjot Singh.

On December 06, India will play New Zealand, China on December 8 and Belgium on December 10. The classification matches and medal round matches will be played on December 12 and 13 December, respectively.