Indian men’s hockey team for the FIH Men’s Champions Challenge I Hockey Tournament to be held at Salta, Argentina from 06- 13 next month, listed. Winner of the 8-team compeition will qualifiy for the next year’s Champions Trophy.
Goalkeepers
Adrian D’Souza
PR Sreejesh
Defenders
Sardar Singh
Sandeep Singh
Gurbaj Singh
Bharat
Ajitesh Roy
Dhananjay Mahadik
V Raghunath
Midfielders
Tushar Khandker
Arjun Halappa
Vikram Pillay
Roshan Minz
Danish Mujtaba
Vikas Sharma
Forwards
Rajpal Singh (Capt)
Gurvinder Singh Chandi
Shivendra Singh
Deepak Thakur
Sarwanjit Singh
Mandeep Antil
Prabhjot Singh
Jose Brasa (Chief Coach). Harendra Singh (National Coach), Romeo James and Ramandeep Singh (Asst. Coaches), David Perez (Trainer), Lt. Col. B.K. Nayak (Doctor), Shrikant Iyengar (Physiotherapist), Clarence Lobo (Video Analyst), R.K. Bansiwal (Masseur) and Rajeev Mehta (Manager).
India have been drawn in Pool A with Belgium, China and New Zealand, while Pool B consists of hosts Argentina, Canada, Pakistan and South Africa.
The winner of the tournament shall be promoted to play in the elite six nation Champions Trophy next year.
The Indian fixtures are as under :
Dec 06 v New Zealand
Dec 08 v China
Dec 10 v Belgium
The Classification Matches and Final will be played on 12 and 13 December respectively.
The Indian team will leave leave for Madrid, Spain for a one week training cum competition programme enroute to Salta on 23 November.
India had won the inaugural Champions Challenge Tournament at Kuala Lumpur in 2001, and had thus played the Champions Trophy at Cologne in 2003. India last played the Champions Challenge at Boom, Belgium in 2007 where they finished third.