Arjun Halappa named as Indian hockey team captain for the 20th Sultan Azlan Shah Cup
The Air-India mid-fielder, Arjun Halappa has been named as captain of the Indian Men’s hockey team for the 20th Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in Malaysia. This announcement had been made by the hockey officials on April 6.
The 30-year-old was surprised to hear about the news, taking over the reign of Rajpal Singh. He found out about it while he was out, doing shopping.
"I had no clue (about the captaincy news)... I was just shopping with my cousin here in Delhi and suddenly I've been receiving congratulatory calls and messages about it. It's an honour to lead the country,” said Halappa.
India has a record of five wins at the Azlan Cup with a joint win with Korea in the last year’s edition. Halappa has an impressive 201 international caps to his name confidently stepped up to take the responsibility awarded and said, "We have done well at
the Azlan Shah in the past. However, this time round we will be missing a number of key players.”
He continued by listing the names as Rajpal Singh and Tushar Khandker are unavailable due to their injuries whereas two very talented players Sardara Singh and the drag-flicker Sandeep Singh have been dropped by Hockey India (HI) on not attaining an NOC
for attending the foreign league. However, the younger players will hopefully get chosen that will allow them a chance to learn a lot from the upcoming event.
With the Sandeep and Sardara playing at the Belgium League, HI selected a three-member committee for deciding over the action to be taken over such indiscipline by the two players. The HI Secretary N.K. Batra stated that no one is above the game and such indiscipline
will not be tolerated.
In the meantime, a preparatory camp is currently running up at the Dhyan Chand National Stadium in New Delhi. The HI’s selection committee announced the 45 potential players to appear in the final trials that will be held on April 18 and 19 at the same venue.
These trials will short-list an 18-member squad to play the Malaysian tournament that begins on May 5 in Ipoh.
The players that qualified for the final trials are S. Arumugam, Gurwinder Singh Chandi, Arjun Halappa, Shashi Topno, Mandeep AntilSarvanjeet Singh, Danish Mujtaba, Shivendra Singh, Amir Khan, Hari Prasad, Roshan Minz, Tushar Khandker, Bikas Toppo, Mohd. S.V.
Sunil, Prabhdeep Singh, Chinglensana and Rajpal Singh as forwards.
The mid-fielders that have been selected are Vikram Kant, Bharat Kumar Chetri, Kothajit Singh, Amardeep Ekka, Vikram Pillay, Rajesh Kumar, Gurjinder Singh, Ravi Pal, Preetinder Singh, Vikas Pillay, Birendra Lakra (Jr.), Gurbaj Singh, Rupinderpal Singh, Ajitesh
Roy, Varinderjit Singh, Vikas Sharma and V.S. Vinaya followed by the goalkeepers Gurpreet Singh, Adrian D'Souza, P. Naveen Kumar and P.R. Sreejesh.
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