New Delhi, 28 July 2017: Hockey India on Friday announced the 18-member Indian Men’s team for the Europe Tour of Belgium and Netherlands where six youngsters will be making their debuts. The Europe Tour begins with the Indian Team taking on Belgium on August 9 in the first Match in Boom, Belgium.

The team will be Captained by Manpreet Singh while Chinglensana Singh has been announced as the Vice-Captain.

Hockey India has named a young team for the tour with some of the key players who participated in the World League Semi-Final 2017 (Men) being rested. The 18-member Team for the Europe Tour will see six players making their debut including goalkeeper Suraj Karkera from Mumbai who had missed the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup earlier this year due to an injury. The team will also see Junior World Cup heroes Varun Kumar, Dipsan Tirkey, Nilakanta Sharma, Gurjant Singh and Armaan Qureshi making their Indian men’s team debut. Talented defender and dragflicker Amit Rohidas who had an outstanding season with Kalinga Lancers, the winners of the 2017 Coal India Hockey India League, too finds himself in the squad for the Europe Tour.

With their vision set on this years Asia Cup, Odisha Men’s Hockey World League Final Bhubaneswar 2017 and next year’s Odisha Hockey Men’s World Cup Bhubaneswar 2018, Hockey India is in the hunt for the right mix of players who can bring desired results at the 2020 Olympic Games, the team has been picked in order to give talented youngsters an opportunity to gain experience. “We will continue to test some of the younger players in this tour in order to give them the international exposure in this new Olympic cycle. The team has been training in SAI Bengaluru where we have been working on improving our counter control and defence apart from working on variations that can improve our goal scoring. It is important for the youngsters to face top teams like the Netherlands and Belgium early in their career and which will undoubtedly benefit our long-term goals,” expressed Chief Coach Roelant Oltmans.

India are scheduled to play five matches in their Europe Tour as they take on Belgium in the first two matches on August 9 and 10. The Team will then move to Waalwijk, Netherlands to face the home team on August 13 and 14. They will play their fifth and final match of the Tour against Austria in Amstelveen, Netherlands on August 16, 2017.

Ahead of their departure for the Europe Tour, the national squad will continue their National Camp until August 5, 2017.

Squad: 

Goalkeepers

1.     Akash Anil Chikte

2.     Suraj Karkera

Defenders

3.     Dipsan Tirkey

4.     Kothajit Singh

5.     Gurinder Singh

6.     Amit Rohidas

7.     Varun Kumar

Midfielders

8.    SK Uthappa

9.    Harjeet Singh

10.  Manpreet Singh (Captain)

11.  Chinglensana Singh (Vice-Captain)

12.  Sumit

13.  Nilakanta Sharma

Forwards

14.  Mandeep Singh

15.  Ramandeep Singh

16.  Lalit Kumar Upadhyay

17.  Gurjant Singh

18.  Armaan Qureshi

India will play Belgium in their first match on August 9 at 22.30 hours IST.

Please find attached team photo and schedule for Europe Tour of the Netherlands and Belgium.

For live score updates, please follow http://www.fih.ch/events/match-center

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