Team India incurred an enormous blow as mid-fielder Hardik Singh has been dominated out of the rest of the continuing Hockey World Cup 2023 in Odisha. Raj Kumar Pal has been named as his alternative.
Hardik has sustained a hamstring damage in the course of the Pool D match in opposition to England which resulted in a 0-0 draw. Hardik had limped off the sector with simply over three minutes left within the match. Later within the press-conference, head coach Graham Reid admitted that it didn’t seem as critical as was initially suspected.
Hardik was nevertheless rested for the match in opposition to Wales after his MRI scan because the administration didn’t need to irritate the damage.
Although India beat Wales by a convincing margin of 4-2, twin aim scorer Akashdeep Singh had admitted that the staff missed the providers of Hardik.
“When you have 18 players to play for a team, and because of some reason if you are one player less, the remaining players will play more time and become tired. So, definitely we felt his absence. I feel he will recover in time for the next match and play against New Zealand. It’s a do or die match against New Zealand. We are physically and mentally ready for the match,” he mentioned.
Speaking on the choice about Hardik, Coach Reid mentioned: “Overnight we had to make the difficult decision of replacing Hardik Singh in the Indian Team for Sunday’s match vs New Zealand and the subsequent World Cup matches.”
“While the injury was not as severe as the initial incident suggested, time was not on our side and after our ongoing thorough rehabilitation process and functional and on-field assessment today, it has been decided that we will replace Hardik with Raj Kumar Pal. While it is extremely disappointing for Hardik personally of course, given how well he played in our first two matches, we are excited at the prospects of Raj Kumar joining the group for the remaining World Cup matches,” he added.
India completed second in Pool D and can now must beat New Zealand within the crossover tie to progress to the quarterfinal.
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