Olympic bronze-medalist Vivek Sagar Prasad will lead the 18-strong Indian men’s hockey squad’s title defence at the FIH men’s junior World Cup starting in Bhubaneswar from November 24.
The event slated to begin on November 24 will witness 16 top teams from across the globe vie for the trophy, which was previously won by India in 2016.
While the 21-year-old Vivek, who was part of India’s historic Olympic bronze medal winning senior team at Tokyo earlier this year, will captain the squad, 2018 Youth Olympics silver-medalist defender Sanjay will be supporting him as the vice-captain.
Dinachandra Singh Moirangthem and Boby Singh Dhami have been chosen as alternate players who will be allowed to compete only if there is an injury or someone in the 18-member squad is ruled out of the tournament due to COVID-19.
India begin their campaign on November 24 against France. They will take on Canada a day later on November 25 in their second match in the round robin league.
This will be followed by their match against Poland on November 27. The knockout matches will take place between December 1 and 5.
Squad: Vivek Sagar Prasad (C), Sanjay (VC) Shardanand Tiwari, Prashant Chauhan (GK), Sudeep Chirmako, Rahul Kumar Rajbhar, Maninder Singh, Pawan (GK), Vishnukant Singh, Ankit Pal, Uttam Singh, Sunil Jojo, Manjeet, Rabichandra Singh Moirangthem, Abhishek Lakra, Yashdeep Siwach, Gurmukh Singh, Araijeet Singh Hundal