India’s Tokyo Olympic preparation gets a boost with the men’s team all set to play  their first international activity in more than a year. Ace goalkeeper PR Sreejsh returns to captaincy mantle and Dipsan Tirkey makes a comeback while Manpreet Singh, who had been leading India over a couple of years is conspicuous miss out in the team for the Europe tour (Belgium and Germany) announced today.

PR Srejesh led India to bronze at the Jakarta Asian Games before the mantle was handed over to Manpreet Singh. It could not be immediately ascertained the cause of not including Manpreet Singh, who got married a couple of months ago. We await reply from the competent authority.

Dipsan Tirkey led India at the 2018 Sultan Azlan Shah Cup but was not in the 2020 Pro League team, the last international engagement for the Indian men.

The 22-member squad will leave India on 21st February 2021 from Bengaluru for Krefeld, Germany where they will play the home team on 28th February and 2nd March 2021. They will then travel to Antwerp, Belgium where their rival will be Great Britain (on 6th and 8th March 2021).

The Indian Men’s Team last participated in an International competition in February 2020 when they took on Australia during the FIH Hockey Pro League matches held in Bhubaneswar. As a result of the Indian team’s good performance, the team had climbed to 4th in the FIH world rankings, India’s highest ranking till date

Expressing his eagerness to watch his team compete, the Indian Men’s Chief Coach Graham Reid is reported as saying, “We are very grateful for the opportunity to go to Europe, and we are looking forward to having our first competitive matches in just over 12 months. Playing against powerhouse teams like Germany and Great Britain will provide us with great competition and help immensely in our FIH Hockey Pro League and Olympic Games preparation. Playing any top 10 ranked team is always a great experience for the team.” 

Reflecting the team’s excitement to compete, Men’s team Vice Skipper Harmanpreet Singh said, “We are absolutely excited to be traveling for the first time in over a year. Playing against Germany and Great Britain will help us set the parameters for preparing best ahead of FIH Hockey Pro League which is our immediate competition ahead of the Olympic Games. We understand the weather in Europe will be quite cold this time of the year, but we have almost a week to acclimatize. We are looking forward to this exciting challenge, we can’t wait to get into competition mode.”  

Hockey India and the host National Associations have planned to create a bio bubble in countries the team will be traveling for training and competition. The Indian Men’s Team will be staying in a hotel where a provision to have separate rooms/halls for the team for all the meals, team meetings, sessions etc have been made. The accommodation will be on twin sharing basis, where the room sharing partners will remain same throughout the tour who will also be same even in case of the seating arrangement in the team coach/bus, this has been planned carefully keeping in mind all necessary requirements.

The team members will not be moving out of the bubble and meeting any third-party source as even while travelling to the match/training venue the team will be travelling in a dedicated transport. The local resources along with the team eg. Team bus/coach, drivers, support staff will all remain the same throughout the tour to avoid any lapses in any way possible.

The entire Indian contingent will undergo a Covid-19 RT-PCR Test 48 hours prior to their departure from SAI Centre, Bengaluru. Though there is no requirement of quarantine upon arrival in Germany, the team will still be following all safety and health measures as advised by the respective Governments of India, Germany and Belgium. Further the teams will also be following the Hockey India SOPs as available on the Hockey India website.

THE VISITING TEAM: P R Sreejesh (C.), Krishan Bahadur Pathak, Amit Rohidas, Dipsan Tirkey, Gurinder Singh, Harmanpreet Singh (V.C.), Surender Kumar, Jarmanpreet Singh, Birendra Lakra, Chinglensana Singh, Nilakanta Sharma, Hardik Singh, Vivek Sagar Prasad, Rajkumar Pal, Simranjeet Singh, Shamsher Singh, Akashdeep Singh, Gurjant Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Dilpreet Singh, Mandeep Singh, Lalit Kumar Upadhyay