Harjeet Singh to captain Indian team at the Uttar Pradesh Hockey Junior World Cup Men Lucknow 2016

Harjeet Singh and Dipsan Tirkey

Hockey India today named Harjeet Singh the 20-year-old midfielder from Kurali in Punjab, as the Captain of the 18-member Indian junior men’s team who will be vying for top honours at the forthcoming Uttar Pradesh Hockey Junior World Cup Men Lucknow 2016 slated to begin on 8th December 2016. Defender Dipsan Tirkey will shoulder the responsibilities of the Vice-Captain.

Harjeet has been instrumental in the junior team’s success in recent times. He also led the colts in Valencia, Spain last month where they won the Four Nations Invitational Tournament beating Germany in the Final.

Earlier this year, he was also named the ‘Jugraj Singh Upcoming Player of the Year (Men – 21)’ at the Hockey India Annual Awards and was rewarded for his consistency with a call-up for the senior men’s squad for the Sultan Azlan Shah tournament in April where the team finished second behind World Champions Australia.

Harjeet was also part of the Indian senior men’s team that won the Silver medal at the FIH Champions Trophy in London this year where he filled in for stalwart Indian midfielder Sardar Singh.  

Tirkey, on the other hand, is a fireball on the pitch. The 18-year-old from Sundargarh in Odisha had led the Indian team to a splendid win at the EurAsia Cup in Russia earlier this year followed by the England Tour where they beat the Scotland senior men’s team, Hampstead and Westminster, and won two matches against England.  

“Harjeet has special abilities in terms of keeping the team together and motivated them which is a rare thing in players of this age. Those are the features we always look for in a Captain. Dipsan too shows qualities of a leader and has done consistently well in the buildup to the World Cup,” stated Roelant Oltmans.