Hockey India today named an 18-member Indian Junior Men Team, including three from Odisha for the Eight-Nation Under-21 Tournament, scheduled to be held in Madrid, Spain 10 to 16 June 2019. The three Odisha players are: defenders Pratap Lakra, Suman Beck and forward Sudeep Chirmako.

Suman Beck also has been named as the vice-captain of the team, which will be led by Mandeep Mor. Other seven teams in the fray are: Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain, Austria, Australia, Germany and hosts Spain.

Teams have been divided into two pools with Belgium, Great Britain, Germany, Austria forming Pool-A, and Netherlands, Australia, Spain and India constituting Pool-B. After completion of pool league matches, top two teams from each pool would qualify for semifinals.

India would play their opening match against Australia in June 10. Thereafter, India will take on Netherlands and Spain on June 11 and 13 respectively.

Speaking about the tournament, David John, Director, High Performance said, “This will be quite a challenging tournament given the teams participating in it and I believe the tournament will give us an understanding of where we stand in terms of our preparations for the Junior World Cup in 2021.”

INDIA JUNIOR MEN TEAM:

Goalkeepers: Prashant Kumar Chauhan, Pawan
Defenders: Mandeep Mor (Captain), Pratap Lakra, Sanjay, Akashdeep Singh Junior, Suman Beck (Vice-captain), Parampreet Singh
Mid-fielders: Yashdeep Siwach, Vishnu Kant Singh, Rabichandra Singh Moirangthem, Maninder Singh, Vishal Antil
Forwards: Amandeep Singh, Rahul Kumar Rajbhar, Shivam Anand, Sudeep Chirmako, Prabhjot Singh