Hockey India today named a group of 30 core probables, including six from Odisha for the Senior Men National Coaching Camp, which is set to begin in SAI Centre in Bengaluru on 4 October 2021. The six Odisha players are: Amit Rohidas, Shilanand Lakra, Dipsan Tirkey, Nilam Sanjeep Xess, Suman Beck and Ashis Kumar Topno.

After a successful campaign at the Tokyo Olympic Games where India clinched a historic bronze and ended the 41-yearlong year wait for a medal, the Indian Men Core Group will begin the new Olympic cycle with an intent to improve upon this performance at Paris 2024.

Speaking about the upcoming national coaching camp, Chief Coach Graham Reid said, "The players are coming off a long and well-deserved break. I believe they will be excited to be back in the National 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."

He further emphasized that the players must now leave behind the success of Tokyo and start fresh ahead of a hectic season in 2022. "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."

LIST OF CORE PROBABLES: 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.
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PHOTO: Odisha plyers (L-R) Dipsan Tirkey, Amit Rohidas, Shilanand Lakra and Ashis Kumar Topno.