Chetri confident ahead of Hockey 9s

India hockey captain Bharat Chetri feels that playing in the new format — Hockey 9s Super Series — will prove to be advantageous for India in the long run, including the Olympic Qualifier. India is one of the four countries taking part in the Super Series Hockey 9s, which will be played with less number of players for lesser time with wider goalmouth and new set of penalty corner rules.

Chetri said that playing against teams like Australia, Pakistan and New Zealand in the new format will add value and quality to India’s Olympic qualifier programme. “All the other countries in the competition, except India, have qualified for the next year’s Olympics. We have now got a chance to engage the teams in a competition,” Chetri said at the Cutin University Hockey grounds.

“This format lays emphasis on scoring and that is what we need to do at the qualifier. If we can score more goals here and keep up the habit, it will do a world of good to us,” he added. Chetri insisted that there is enough time before the qualifiers to get back into the traditional format mode.

“We will be playing test matches against Australia and Pakistan after the Hockey 9s event. Thereafter we have Champions Challenge also. The test matches and the Champions Challenge will anyway be played on traditional format so I see no difficulty in reverting to the original format.” India plays New Zealand on Thursday in the opener.