Mumbai: Suraj Karkera from Mumbia is the lone player to be name in the 30-member team for the national senior men's hockey camp to be held in Bengaluru SAI from October 4.
The goalkeeper, Karkera has been a regular member of the Indian camp and is hopeful that he will make it for the main stream for the hectic schedule this year and the next year.
"I will give my best and with Sreejesh Bhai in the camp I am sure he will help me to improvise my skills," said Karkera while talking to FPJ from Bengaluru.
"He (Sreejesh) Bhai, has always been forthright in helping the juniors and I am happy he is there," said Karkera.
After their successful campaign at the Tokyo Olympic Games where India clinched a historic bronze medal and ended the 41-yearlong year wait, Indian men's core croup will regroup at the SAI, Bengaluru for the national camp from October 4.
With the mission Paris, 2024 on cards, besides other events these big boys of Indian hockey with a mix of young and experienced players will get down to serious business.
"The players are coming off a long and well-deserved break. I believe they will be excited to be back in the camp and refocus on our goals for next year," said Graham Reid, the chief coach in a Hockey India release. And went on to add, "We will be going through our performance in the Olympics both from the perspective of individual performances and as a team".
He further emphasised that the players must now leave behind the success of Tokyo and start fresh ahead of a hectic season in 2022.
"Experiencing success in the Olympics is great but now I want the players to be mentally and physically ready for a hectic season in 2022 with some very important tournaments starting from the FIH Hockey Pro League in February. This camp will be more about strength and conditioning and we will look at making a slow start," he added.
Players called for the camp
P R Sreejesh, Krishan Bahadur Pathak, Suraj Karkera, Harmanpreet Singh
Dilpreet Singh, Surender Kumar, Gurinder Singh, Amit Rohidas, Manpreet Singh, Hardik Singh, Nilakanta Sharma, Vivek Sagar Prasad, Simranjeet Singh, Akashdeep Singh, Mandeep Singh, Lalit Kumar Upadhyay, Gursahibjit Singh, Shamsher Singh, Varun Kumar, Jarmanpreet Singh, Dipsan Tirkey, Nilam Sanjeep Xess, Jaskaran Singh, Rajkumar Pal, Gurjant Singh, Sumit Shilanand Lakra, Suman Beck, Mandeep Mor, Ashis Kumar Topno
