Ahead of Commonwealth Games 2022, India men's hockey team coach Graham Reid said that the team is excited and it will be a tough competition to perform in a multi-sports event.
The Indian Men's Hockey Team, led by Manpreet Singh, is placed in Pool B in the Commonwealth Games along with England, Canada, Wales, and Ghana. The Indian Team will kick off their campaign against Ghana on Sunday, July 31, 2022.
Team India will be facing tough competition in Pool B as tournament favourites England are also placed in it with India.
"It's a great competition in hockey. Our Pool is tough... opposite pool is tough so there is no easy match in this competition. CWG are a little bit unknown to us so it will a tough competition," Reid told ANI.
The 10 nations competing in the men's event are England, Australia, India, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, Wales, Pakistan, Scotland and Ghana.
Talking about the practice for the Commonwealth Games 2022 and how the team is preparing to take the multi-sports event by storm, Graham Reid said, "Look it's been a long trip.... something like 37 hours by the time we left Bangaluru and landed in the Village. It was a quite long trip here. But now things are starting well and we are doing okay. We played pretty okay in the practice today and we need to get bugs out then we will be fine."
India and Pakistan are in different Pools.
In the last 13 encounters, India had won the game or only played the draws against their arch-rival Pakistan.
Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan and Scotland are drawn into Group A of the competition.
"We are taking it one at a time as we have our first-round games. Pakistan is in Pool A so that might come up against us sometime. At that moment if it happened it will light up the tournament. We will be ready for that," Reid said.
"Any multi-sports event like this is different. We have to fight hard because normally we have a tournament where hockey is the only sport like World Cup... you know which is also a huge event. It will take a couple of days in the village to back together and make sure we are fine. We are excited. We have been dreaming about it so it's very nice to be here," he added.
The men's Hockey event semi-finals are scheduled for August 6, while the medal matches will take place on August 8.
( With inputs from ANI )
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