Hockey captain Manpreet Singh: Confidence up, heads down

The Indian hockey team proved that their preparations to succeed at the Tokyo Olympics later this year are on track by beating reigning Olympic champions Argentina twice in the FIH Pro League double header in Buenos Aires recentlySkipper Manpreet Singh 28 led from the front as the Indians beat the Argentines 32 via a shootout in the first fixture on April 11 and then exhibited a dominant 30 win over the hosts 24 hours laterIn an interview with midday Manpreet insisted that though the victories are massive confidenceboosters they must continue to work hard as they still have a few more Pro League ties abroad before the ultimate test in Tokyo July 23 to August 8mdashand all this while they adhere to the stringent international COVID19 restrictions around themEdited excerpts from the interviewOn the victories over Argentina These two wins have given us a lot of confidence Argentina are a good attacking team and we did well against them in the practice matches too India won two lost one and drew one in their four practice matches in Argentina Our ultimate aim is to win a medal at the Tokyo Games and we are working hard for it but before that we have three more Pro League double headers against Great Britain May 89 Spain May 1516 and Germany May2223 So we have to keep our heads down and focusOn the forwards not scoring enough goals Our forwards managed to score just two field goals against Argentina but we are not worried about that because our strategy is that if the forwards are unable to score then they should at least earn penalty corners so that our drag flickers can then take advantage of that And thatrsquos exactly what happened drag flicker Harmanpreet Singh scored three of the five goals against the Argentines off penalty cornersOn healthy competition within the team Be it in the goalkeeping department or defence or the forwardline there is healthy competition to make it to the playing XI Thatrsquos always better than any player taking his place in the team for granted Goalkeepers PR Sreejesh 34 and Krishan Pathak 23 were rotated during the matches against Argentina and it worked Sreejesh has loads of experience and is always sharing that with Pathak who played his 50th cap for us here so he is also growing in experience Among drag flickers we have the experienced Bob Rupinderpal Singh 30 on one hand and the young Harmanpreet Singh 25 on the other On the challenges posed by COVID19 Itrsquos a challenging time all around the world and our team are taking every precaution and staying within the bio bubble at all times We are regularly using sanitisers and constantly wearing our masks right up to the time we step onto the ground Currently the COVID19 situation back home is worrying too and we are constantly in touch with our families and advising them to stay indoors Luckily for me we grow vegetables in our own backyard so my parents do not need to go out for anything Thankfully as of now none of our family members are infectedOn pressure given the Olympics is less than 100 days away Therersquos no pressure as such we are taking every match as it comes We donrsquot want to get too far ahead of ourselves We have to continue working hard Our coach Graham Reid wants us to play good attacking hockey and so far we have succeeded in doing that