Rohidas Among Half Dozen Players From Odisha Named For National Hockey Camp

New Delhi: Hockey India (HI) on Saturday named a 30-member core probable group for the senior men’s national coaching camp which will begin at the SAI centre in Bengaluru on October 4.

As many as six of the 30 players are from Odisha — Amit Rohidas, Dipsan Tirkey, Shilanand Lakra, Ashis Kumar Topno, Nilam Sanjeep and Suman Beck.

Rohidas, along with Birender Lakra, were the pillars of Indian team’s defence in the recent Tokyo Olympics. India ended a 41-year Olympic medal drought to claim bronze in 32nd Summer Games.

Birender Lakra announced his retirement from international hockey two days ago.

The core grouped named by HI is a mix of young and experienced players.

“The players are coming off a long and well-deserved break. I believe they will be excited to be back in the camp and refocus on our goals for next year. We will be going through our performance in the Olympics both from the perspective of individual performances and as a team,” said chief coach Graham Reid.

He urged the players to leave behind the fine performance in Tokyo and start afresh ahead of a hectic 2022 season.

“Experiencing success in the Olympics is great but now I want the players to be mentally and physically ready for a hectic season in 2022 with some very important tournaments starting from the FIH Hockey Pro League in February. This camp will be more about strength and conditioning and we will look at making a slow start,” he added.

Players for National Camp:

PR Sreejesh, Krishan Bahadur Pathak, Suraj Karkera, Harmanpreet Singh, Dilpreet Singh, Surender Kumar, Gurinder Singh, Amit Rohidas, Manpreet Singh, Hardik Singh, Nilakanta Sharma, Vivek Sagar Prasad, Simranjeet Singh, Akashdeep Singh, Mandeep Singh, Lalit Kumar Upadhyay, Gursahibjit Singh, Shamsher Singh, Varun Kumar, Jarmanpreet Singh, Dipsan Tirkey, Nilam Sanjeep Xess, Jaskaran Singh, Rajkumar Pal, Gurjant Singh, Sumit Shilanand Lakra, Suman Beck, Mandeep Mor, Ashis Kumar Topno.