Indian junior men’s hockey team is geared up for the Men’s Junior Asia Cup 2023 in Salalah, Oman, which is set to commence on May 23 with the final scheduled on June 1.
The top three finishers in the tournament will qualify for the FIH Junior Hockey Men’s World Cup 2023, which is set to be played in Malaysia in December this year.
The Indian team, captained by Uttam Singh, will enter the tournament as defending champion and is also the most successful team in the title event alongside Pakistan with three wins each
The tournament will see 10 teams, split into two pools. India has been grouped in pool A of the tournament along with Pakistan, Japan, Thailand, and Chinese Taipei, while pool B consists of hosts Oman, Korea, Malaysia, Bangladesh, and Uzbekistan.
Speaking ahead of the tournament, Uttam said, “Junior Asia Cup is a big opportunity for us to prove our mettle and implement everything that we have worked on during training sessions. Given the good international exposure that we have gained in the last couple of years and the recent practice sessions that we had in SAI Centre, Bengaluru, where we also played against the Senior Team to hone our skills, we can say that we are well prepared to defend the title.”
As per the tournament format, each team in the pool stage will play the other four teams in their pool once and the top two teams in both pools will qualify for the semi-finals.