Bangalore: India’s new vice-captain Chinglensana Singh said Thursday he is ready to shoulder the responsibility with the Hockey World League Semifinals beginning next month.
“This is an important tour for us in our preparations for the World League Finals in December and I am very excited to be entrusted with this new responsibility,” said Chinglensana on the sidelines of the ongoing national camp at SAI, here.
Chinglensana is well-versed with attacking and defensive qualities and performs both with aplomb. At times he breaks into the opponents’ half to find the forwards with pinpoint accuracy. At other times he dons the hat of a stopper when Harmanpreet Singh or Rupinder Pal Singh goes upfront to take part in penalty corner conversions .
“It’s these abilities on the field to adapt to any situation and his great spirit and energy were the qualities that made our decision easy to name him as vice-captain of the team,” explained chief coach Roelant Oltmans.
With the pressure on forwards to improve their field goal conversion rate from 20 per cent at the recently-concluded 26th Sultan Azlan Shah Cup, Chinglensana’s role in the centre of the field becomes all the more crucial for the team. It helps that Chinglensana exhibits an attitude that revolves around a team-first approach.
“Whether you are the vice-captain, captain or a senior player in the team, it is important for us to guide youngsters in matches. Rectifying the mistakes we made in Malaysia was the main goal of this camp. I am sure if we don’t repeat those, we will bring good results in both Germany and London,” he pointed out.
While India play two matches each against Germany and Belgium in Dusseldorf at the 3-Nations invitational tournament starting June 1, India are grouped with Canada, Scotland, Netherlands and Pakistan in the World League Semifinals starting, June 15.
PTI
