Journalism of Courage
Advertisement
Premium

Old pattern of nationals to help hockey: Syed Ali

Olympian Syed Ali is satisfied with the fact that in the upcoming senior national hockey championship,the states have been given a lion’s share.

Olympian Syed Ali is satisfied with the fact that in the upcoming senior national hockey championship,the states have been given a lion’s share. The championships will be held at Bhopal from June 10 to 19. Syed,who is also a Hockey India selector,expressed happiness at the fact that 14 international level players participated in the trials organised at Lucknow to select the Uttar Pradesh team probables for the nationals.

He said that though in his times majority of the state teams used to take part in the national championships,but later on many departmental teams used to play in the national championships. It is something good that in the upcoming nationals,the state teams will be in majority among the 32 participating teams while just four departmental teams— Services,Railways,Air India and Combined Universities will be there. “It is because of this that as many as 14 internationals — Devesh Chauhan,Diwakar Ram,Danish Mujtaba,Vikas Sharma,M Amir,Hamza Mujtaba,Amit Prabhakar,Kothajit,Vivek Gupta,Chandan Singh,Hari Kripal,Pramod Kumar and Nitin participated in the UP team trials today. They have all international exposure either at senior or junior level. Some of the players are employed with the ONGC and Indian Oil so they used to participate from their respective departments,” he informed.

“Now since the players will be representing their respective states,the true strength of the state hockey will come to the fore. The most important thing is that all this will help in hockey promotion as young and promising players will get a chance to be a part of the state team and play in the nationals which is just the right platform to showcase your talent. The nationals should be organised every year.” He also felt that the standard of hockey should be such that selectors don’t have to ask anybody as to who are the international players taking part in any trials,their game should speak for themselves.

Those selected as UP team probables include: Devesh Chauhan,Diwakar Ram,Chandan Singh,Sunil Yadav,Vivek Gupta,Pramod Kumar,Amit Prabhakar,Vikas Sharma,Nitin,Danish Mujtaba,Sunil Yadav,Hari Kripal,Hamza,M Amir,Kothajit,M Haseeb,Imran,Asif,Deepak Yadav,Javed,Siddharth Shankar,Abhinav Pandey,Ashish Mishra,Pawan Bhatnagar,M Shaad,Imran (STC),Imran (Jhansi),Abhishek Singh,Sandeep Kumar Singh,Ajay Kumar,M Saifi,Dilshad Khan,Abhishek Kumar Singh.

Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram

Tags:
  • Diwakar Ram ONGC
Edition
search
Install the Express App for
a better experience
Featured
Today's E-paper
Nov 19, 2025
Trending Topics
News
Multimedia
Follow Us
Express PremiumKillings, surrenders and a divided outfit: End of the road for Maoists?
X