Men’s Hockey Team For Tokyo Olympics Announced, Two Players From Odisha In the Squad

New Delhi: Hockey India on Friday announced the 16 member men’s hockey team for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics.

Veteran player Birendra Lakra and emerging defender Amit Rohidas are the two players from Odisha selected in the 16 member squad. Birendra had missed the 2016 Olympics due to knee injury.

The team includes six seasoned campaigners like former skipper and goalkeeper Sreejesh, midfielder Manpreet, defenders Harmanpreet Singh, Rupinder Pal Singh and Surender Kumar and forward Mandeep Singh. The six players had played in the Rio Olympics in  2016. 

Whereas, Amit Rohidas, Hardik Singh, Vivek Sagar Prasad, Nilakanta Sharma, Sumit, Shamsher Singh, Dilpreet Singh, Gurjant Singh and Lalit Kumar Upadhyay are the 10 players to make their Olympic debut in Tokyo.

The current team has won the Asian Champions Trophy in 2016 and 2018, Asia Cup Gold in 2017 and World Series in 2019. 

Placed in Pool-A for the matches in the Tokyo Olympics, the Indian Men’s Team has to compete with defending champions Argentina, three time world champions and current world no.1 Australia, New Zealand, Spain and hosts Japan.

The team is training at the ongoing national camp at SAI Centre in Bengaluru.