Lausanne: 03 June 2022: With just a few hours to go for the inaugural edition of the FIH Hockey5s, the Indian Men’s Hockey Team is in readiness to leave their mark in the shortest format of the game, which is scheduled to take place on 4th and 5th June in Lausanne.
The Indian team will play their opening match against hosts Switzerland on 4th June, followed by their match against Pakistan on the same day. They will then face Malaysia and Poland respectively on 5th June.
Speaking ahead of the two-day event, Indian Men’s Hockey Team Captain Gurinder Singh stated, “We are really excited to be here in Lausanne, it’s a great atmosphere out here. We also had good training sessions, and we are fully prepared for the tournament.”
“We will be up against some quality teams and since the format is new, it will be a challenging task for us. It is fast-paced and we will need to adapt to the situations as quickly as possible,” he added.
The nine-member squad features Pawan, Sanjay and Rabichandra Singh Moirangthem were part of the Silver-medal winning team at the Youth Olympic Games in 2018 of Hockey 5s format.
Speaking about the team’s preparedness and the team balance, Gurinder said,” It will require a lot of speed and skills. We’ve worked on short passes, 3D skills and the structure as well. The use of perimeter boards is a new element in this format, and we will try to take advantage of it. We have got three players in the team, who have played this format before, so their experiences have been really helpful for us in our preparations.”
Meanwhile, Vice-Captain Sumit said, “It’s a new format for us and we are super excited to play this version of the game. There will be high-scoring and neck to neck games, so our focus will be to play attacking hockey right from the start.”
“We’ve worked on all the aspects of the game, and the key focus will be to use the perimeter boards effectively. We have got a good experienced team, some of us have played this format before, so we are confident and looking forward to this fun filled tournament,” Sumit concluded.
On 4th June, the Indian Men’s team will face the hosts Switzerland at 1830 hrs IST and Pakistan at 2030 hrs IST. Both the matches will be telecasted live on Star Sports First (Eng) + Star Sports Select 1 SD + 1 HD.
