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Journalism of Courage
The Indian hockey teams final squad of 16 members for the Olympics was announced by Hockey India on Monday and,as expected,was devoid of any surprises.
With most of the players selecting themselves given their form and fitness over the last two competitive outings the four-nation Olympic test event in London and the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in Malaysia the only notable omission has been that of Kothajit Singh in the midfield,with youngster Dharamvir Singh coming in instead. Kothajit has been named a standby and,along with Sarvanjit Singh,will be based at the Olympic village with the team.
Dharamvir has been really impressive and worked a lot on not only his game but also his fitness. He has performed well enough to force us to pick him in the squad, coach Michael Nobbs told The Indian Express.
The balance of players is also maintained and that is something very important. That is also one of the reasons for us going with two goalkeepers. One,we want to have insurance against injuries,something that has affected almost every team in recent times. Also,we have seen that certain goalkeepers play better against certain teams and we wanted to keep that option, he added.
Squad: Goalkeepers: Bharat Chhetri,PR Sreejesh; defenders: VR Raghunath,Ignace Tirkey,Sandeep Singh; midfielders: Sardar Singh,Gurbaj Singh,Birendra Lakra,Manpreet Singh; forwards: SV Sunil,Gurwinder Singh Chandi,Shivendra Singh,Danish Mujtaba,Tushar Khandker,Dharamvir Singh,SK Uthappa; standbys: Sarvanjit Singh,Kothajit Singh.
