Chennai: The Indian hockey teams for the coming World Cup and South Asian Federation Games would be announced on August 16, the last day of the four-team Independence Cup starting in Chennai from Saturday.
The four national selectors, along with Indian Hockey Federation President K P S Gill, would finalise the team after assessing the players' performance in the five-day tournament, IHF Secretary K Jothikumaran said.
The SAF Games are to be held in Colombo, Sri Lanka, from August 18 to 27 while the World Cup from September 6 to 17 is in Monchengladbach, Germany.
Jothikumaran said the players for the World Cup would be selected from the probables who underwent a training camp in Hyderabad while the team for the SAF Games would comprise players from the development team with a couple of senior players.
However, he said even a development team player who is not among the World Cup probables could be chosen for the championship if his performance warrants it.
On the training camp at Hyderabad, he said the general feedback was that the team was shaping up well under new physical trainer Derick Knox of Australia.
Jothikumaran said the U-18 team, which took part in a tournament in Singapore recently, gave a good account of itself and gained valuable exposure despite going down to Pakistan in the final.
Talking about the Independence Cup, which would feature the Indian senior, Indian Development, Indian Junior (U-18) and Tamil Nadu state teams, he said it was a unique event as all the national teams would be seen in action at a single tournament.
The teams would play each other once in the round robin league and the top two finishers would qualify for the final to be played on August 16, after a rest day on Independence Day.
In the opening encounters on Friday, Indian Juniors (U-18) take on Tamil Nadu while Indian Seniors clash with Indian Development team.
Jothikumaran said there were plans to make the Independence Cup a regular tournament.
"If not national teams, it could be an Open Tournament," he said.
Informing that ONGC was the main sponsor for the tournament, he said the IHF was expecting a couple of more sponsors before the start of the event.
An umpire’s clinic and coaching seminar would be held on the sidelines of the Independence Cup, the IHF secretary said.
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