Bangalore, Dec 10: The Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) today sprang a surprise when it named a new chief coach and overhauled an earlier probables list for the Azlan Shah Hockey tournament in Malaysia, starting early next month. The new 25-member list, announced here by IHF president K P S Gill, excluded several senior players including captain Dilip Tirkey, strikers Gagan Ajit Singh and Deepak Thakur besides many regular members of the side.
Chief coach Rajinder Singh, under whose stewardship India won four major titles this year, will accompany the team to Malaysia as an observer with junior coach Harendra Singh taking his place.
"The idea is to give exposure to some of the juniors ahead of India's participation in the Olympic qualifiers in Madrid next year," Gill told reporters here.
Gill also indicated that IHF would pick junior players for the upcoming three-match test series against the visiting Netherlands side, which would serve as an "important preparatory series for the Olympic qualifiers."
"We have to have two or three players for each position because of possibility of injury on and off-the-field. Juniors are very good and extremely talented. What they lack is exposure, experience and temperament in playing in big matches," he said.
"The important task is to qualify for the Olympics", he added. Bureau Report