Mumbai: As part of their preparations for
next year's Commonwealth Games in Delhi, the Indian rugby team
will take part in the 2009 IRB Shanghai Sevens tournament from
September 12-13.
Team captain Nasser Hussain, development manager of the
Indian Rugby Union, expressed hope that his squad would finish
higher than their cellar ranking in the two-day nine-country
event.
"We are the lowest ranked team at number nine and any
finish higher than our ranking is good. In fact we are aiming
to finish in the middle," he said today.
The team leaves for China tomorrow from here.
India are placed with strong contenders China and Chinese
Taipei in Pool C with the other teams taking part in the
tournament being Japan, Sri Lanka, Thailand (Pool A), Hong
Kong, Korea and Singapore (Pool B).
"We would be playing five or six matches with the pools
redrawn twice more. This tournament offers us the first
platform for our CWG preparations because of the 7s format,"
the 29-year-old Hussain said.
Hussain and his eleven other teammates reached Mumbai
after a ten-day training stint at Pune's Balewadi complex with
the emphasis on the 7s format.
The Indian captain was also happy that the team had a
fruitful training stint in South Africa before the Pune camp
and said it would be good if they can put into practice
whatever they had learnt.
Bureau Report
First Published: Wednesday, September 09, 2009, 20:18