Indian team touring the Antipodes

NEW DELHI: As part of the preparatory process for the 2010 Commonwealth Games, the Indian hockey team,fresh from a second-place finish in the Punjab Gold Cup tournament, is going on a 20-day tour of Australia and New Zealand from Thursday. The 18-member team would miss Deepak Thakur and Bharat Chhikara on account of injury.

The team: Baljit Singh, Adrian D’Souza, Dilip Tirkey, Sandeep Singh, V.R. Raghunath, Gurbaj Singh, Sardar Singh, Vikram Pillay, Ignace Tirkey, Prabhod Tirkey, V.S. Vinay, Rajpal Singh, Arjun Halappa, Shivendra Singh, Tushar Khandker, S.V. Sunil and Sarwanjit Singh. Coach: Harendra Singh; Manager: Ashok Kumar.

The schedule:

Feb. 14: v Queensland (Brisbane), Feb. 15: v Queensland (Brisbane), Feb. 17: v Australia Development Team (Brisbane), Feb. 18: v Australia Development Team (Brisbane), Feb. 20: v New Zealand Indians (Wellington); Feb. 21: 1st Test: v New Zealand (Wellington), Feb. 22: 2nd Test; v New Zealand (Wellington), Feb. 24: v Invitational XI (Wellington), Feb. 26: v Invitational XI (North Harbour), Feb. 28: 3rd Test: v New Zealand (Auckland), March 1: 4th Test: v New Zealand (Auckland).