India begin Euro leg with eye on World Cup spot

The Indian men’s hockey team will look to produce its best and earn maximum points from the European leg of the FIH Pro League in a bid to secure a direct qualification to next year’s World Cup, which will be jointly hosted by Belgium and Netherlands.

The team is currently placed third in the FIH Pro League standings with 15 points from eight matches, behind Belgium (16) and England (16). Good results in the upcoming eight matches of the European leg can propel India to the top, which means a direct berth in the World Cup.

India played the home leg of the Pro League in Bhubaneswar earlier this year, earning five wins in eight games. In the European leg, first up for India are hosts Netherlands on Saturday followed by the return leg match on June 9.

The Indians will next play Argentina on June 11 and 12, followed by matches against Australia (June 14, 15) and Belgium (June 21, 22). After Amstelveen, India will move to Antwerp, Belgium.

India will be led by talismanic drag-flicker Harmanpreet Singh, while midfield mainstay Hardik Singh will be his deputy.

Keeping the magnitude of the matches in mind, India have fielded an experienced 24-member squad for the leg.

Chief coach Craig Fulton has opted for experience instead of trying out youngsters. “I think it’s pretty clear that this is one of the ways of securing qualification for the World Cup. So, we are definitely putting that as a priority to qualify through the Pro League,” Fulton said. “Obviously, if it doesn’t work out we have the Asia Cup in August in India but we have been working hard for this and we really want to try and finish as high as we possibly can and get on the podium.”

The coach admitted that there are a few grey areas the team needs to address, including penalty corner conversion rate. “We have been focussing on a lot in offence, we have converted a lot of field goals in the last Pro League in Bhubaneswar, which is positive and we want to keep that going,” Fulton said. “But of course we need to improve our penalty corner conversion and we will always be focussing on defence, we will always be focussing on drawing a game instead of losing a game.”

Fulton, however, is in no mood to look too far ahead. “We are taking one game at a time, we want to get maximum points from the upcoming games, so we are not looking too far ahead. That’s our focus,” he said.

Harmanpreet said the three matches they played against Ireland before arriving here will help the side. “We had a good camp in Bengaluru and then we played three matches in Ireland before coming here. The conditions and the pitch in Ireland and here are same so it was good preparation for us,” he said.