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headlines national business sports cricket regional technology world travel autos health opinion | Dhanraj Pillay dropped from World Cup qualifying probables due to injury 15.20 IST 05th May 2001 Ace centreforward and former Captain Dhanraj Pillay has been axed while Mukesh Kumar and Sabu Varkey staged a comeback as the Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) announced the probables for the World Cup Qualifier and Azlan Shah tournaments Friday. Dhanraj had been dropped because of an injury and would not be playing in the crucial World Cup Qualifier at Edinburgh, Scotland from July 4 to 29, IHF President K P S Gill told newspersons in Bangalore. He however would figure along with Mukesh Kumar and Sabu Varkey in the team for Azlan Shan tournament to be played immediately after the qualifier. Dhanraj had not taken part in the camp currently being held in the city. Mukesh Kumar, who had reportedly announced his retirement, had written to the IHF a few days ago that he was fit enough to play at the international level. Sabu Varkey had been ignored by the IHF along with a few others after the Indian team won the gold in Bangkok Asian Games after a gap of 32 years. The IHF pruned the list of 38 probables for the World Cup Qualifiers to 26. Stressing that the Indian team had a crowded calendar, Gill said that a 21-member team would be selected at the camp to be held from May 22 and they would be playing in Australia and New Zealand. The team would be playing three matches in Australia against the Australian Institute of Sports team, which has nine national players, and a five match test series against the New Zealand National team. The senior team would be playing in Australia and New Zealand (June 5 to 25), World Cup Qualifier at Edinburgh (July 4 to 29) and Azlan Shah at Malaysia (July 30 to August 13). He said out of the 26 probables, 13 were juniors and they would form the nucleus of the team for the Junior World Cup at Hobart in October this year. India being the silver medallists at Milton Keynes, a lot is at stake for the team. Around eight juniors would fly back to India immediately after the qualifier to join the junior programme. He said about eleven players would be picked for the Azlan Shah tournament and a few from the qualifier team would form the 18-member Indian contingent at Malaysia, where eight strong teams would be battling it out for the honors. Gill said that the 18-member World Cup qualifying team would proceed to England on July 4 for a training camp and would play matches against Spain, England and France. The team would then proceed to Scotland on July 12 for five days for getting acclimatized to the conditions and to play two ‘low intensity’ matches against Canada and Poland. He said the junior under-21 national team would play an eight-nation tournament in Ponzan, Poland from August 9 to 19 and a test series in the Netherlands from August 20 to 24. It would also participate in a five-nation tournament in Malaysia from August 25 to September 1. The Junior under-18 team would compete in the First Asia Cup in Ipoh, Malaysia from June 1 to 10. The camp would be held in Bangalore from May 11 and Rajender Singh, Narender Singh Sodhi and Edward Brient would be in charge of coaching. -UNI |
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