Samikhsya Bureau
The 18 member Indian Hockey team arrived here today to kick start its preparations for the FIH Men’s Series Final to be held at Kalinga Stadium from June 6 to June 15.
The Hockey India has named a list of 32 players for the Senior Men’s National Camp who included all the 18 players of the Indian Team that took part at the recently concluded Australian Tour.
They will be soon joined by 14 other core members in the national camp.
Speaking on the recently concluded Australian Tour, Chief Coach Graham Reid said that the tour was an opportunity for him to understand his team better.
“It was good to get a view of where the team is at, compared to the World Number 2 side. They have been playing against world-class oppositions on a regular basis in the FIH Pro-League since the Odisha Hockey Men’s World Cup Bhubaneswar 2018.
He said, the tour was ideal in terms of preparation for our upcoming FIH Men’s Series Finals Bhubaneswar Odisha 2019 in Bhubaneswar.
“It provided me a great opportunity to view players at much closer quarters and under the pressure of a world-class team.”
The 55-year-old Australian said that his team is focused on improving their attacking.
“Our ability to score goals under tight marking pressure will be critical if we are to close the gap with teams like Australia.”
Over the next few weeks in Bhubaneswar during our National Camp, we need to create as many opportunities as possible for our attackers to experience this tight pressure, Mr Reid said.
It will also be critical for our defenders to keep improving this area from a defensive point of view. With speed and power becoming the dominant forces in World Hockey, we also need to keep improving in these areas, he said.
On his plans to tackle the hot conditions in Bhubaneswar during the upcoming National Camp, Reid said, “This first week back will be a lighter week for the whole group as the non-traveling group has also been training hard over the last two weeks in Bengaluru and will need to refresh as well.”
“It will give us a chance to work on skills that we have identified during the Australian Tour, he said adding that Bhubaneswar is very hot this time of the year so we will be training early morning and later at night to avoid the heat.”
Apart from the 32 Core Probables, four players namely Dipsan Tirkey, Chinglensana Singh Kangujam, Lalit Kumar Upadhyay and Ramandeep Singh are undergoing their rehabilitation process at SAI, Bengaluru.
