Amstelveen (Netherlands): The Indian men’s hockey team will look to produce its best and earn maximum points from the European leg of the FIH Pro League in a bid to secure a direct qualification to next year’s World Cup.
The next World Cup will be jointly hosted by Belgium and Netherlands.
The Harmanpreet Singh-led side is currently placed third in the FIH Pro League standings with 15 points from eight matches, behind Belgium (16) and England (16).
Good results in the upcoming eight matches of the European leg can propel India to the top, which means a direct berth in the World Cup.
India played the home leg of the ongoing Pro League in Bhubaneswar earlier this year, where they raked up 15 points with five wins in eight games.
In the European leg, first up for India is hosts Netherlands here on Saturday followed by the return leg match on June 9.
The Indians will next play Argentina here on June 11 and 12, followed by matches against Australia (June 14, 15) and Belgium (June 21, 22).
India will be led by talismanic dragflicker Harmanpreet, while midfield mainstay Hardik Singh will be his deputy.
The Indians will take on Belgium at their home turf in Antwerp.
Keeping the magnitude of the matches in mind, India have fielded an experienced 24-member squad for the leg.
The Indian goal will be manned by Krishan Bahadur Pathak and Suraj Karkera, while the defence will be handled by the likes of Amit Rohidas, Harmanpreet, Jugraj Singh, Jarmanpreet Singh, Sanjay and Nilam Sanjeep Xess among others.
The midfield will be led by former skipper Manpreet Singh with current vice-captain Hardik, Vivek Sagar Prasad, Nilakanta Sharma, Shamsher Singh, Raj Kumar Pal and Rajinder Singh also doing duty in the middle.
India boast of a strong strike force in Gurjant Singh, Abhishek, Shilanand Lakra, Mandeep Singh, Lalait Kumar Upadhyay, Dilpreet Singh and Sukhjeet Singh.
Chief coach Craig Fulton has opted for experience instead of trying out youngsters.
“I think it’s pretty clear that this is one of the ways of securing qualification for the World Cup. So we are definitely putting that as a priority to qualify through the Pro League,” Fulton said.
“Obviously if it doesn’t work out we have the Asia Cup in August in India but we have been working hard for this and we really want to try and finish as high as we possibly can and get on the podium.”
The coach admitted that there are a few grey areas the team needs to address, including penalty corner conversion rate.
“We have been focussing on a lot in offence, we have converted a lot of field goals in the last Pro League in Bhubaneswar, which is positive and we want to keep that going,” Fulton said.
“But of course we need to improve penalty corner conversion and we will always be focussing on defence, we will always be focussing on drawing a game instead of losing a game.”
Fulton, however, is in no mood to look too far ahead.
“We are taking one game at a time, we want to get maximum points from the upcoming games, so we are not looking too far ahead. That’s our focus.”
India captain Harmanpreet said the three matches they played against Ireland before arriving here will help the side.
“We had a good camp in Bengaluru and then we played three matches in Ireland before coming here. The conditions and the pitch in Ireland and here are same so it was a good preparation for us,” he said.
He also stressed on the need to convert as many penalty corners as possible.
“Had good outing with dragflicks in Ireland. My mindset is that when the team gets a PC my focus is to convert that into goal,” Harmanpreet said.
