Forward Rajpal becomes Captain of Indian hockey team

The Indian hockey team will depart for the FIH Men's Champions Challenge I tournament in Salta, Argentina from December 6 to 13 with a new skipper: Rajpal Singh. Rajpal, one of the best forwards in Indian team, will lead the team for the upcoming event only. The team will depart from India to Madrid on November 23 for a one-week training-cum-competition tour en-route to Salta. Other than India, New Zealand, Belgium and China (group A), while South Africa, Argentina, Pakistan and Canada are in group B.

India will take on New Zealand in their first match on December 6. India will play against China and Belgium on December 8 and 10 respectively. In the last version of Champions Challenge at Boom, Belgium, India had to content at fourth place. However, the Indian team was lucky enough to won the first edition of the Challenge in Germany in 2003. The winner of the upcoming Champions Challenge will qualify for next year's elite Champions Trophy.


Squad: Adrian D'Souza, PR Sreejesh. Defenders: Sardar Singh, Sandeep Singh, Gurbaj Singh, Bharat Ajitesh Roy, Dhananjay Mahadik, V Raghunath (all are goalkeepers ).

Tushar Khandker, Arjun Halappa, Vikram Pillay, Roshan Minz, Danish Mujtaba, Vikas Sharma (Midfielders), Rajpal Singh (Capt), Gurvinder Singh Chandi, Shivendra Singh, Deepak Thakur, Sarwanjit Singh, Mandeep Antil, Prabhjot Singh (Forwards) and Chief Coach is Jose Brasa while National Coach would be Harendra Singh.