A team man to the core, Manpreet Singh has no qualms about losing captaincy and feels returning veteran Sardar Singh\u2019s presence in the middle will act as motivation for other players in the upcoming FIH Champions Trophy in Breda, Netherlands.<\/p>\n
Sardar, considered one of the world\u2019s best midfielders at one point of time, was dropped for the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, where India finished a disappointing fourth under Manpreet\u2019s captaincy.<\/p>\n
But the seasoned Sardar did not give up hope and fought his way back into the team for the Champions Trophy after impressing new chief coach Harendra Singh in the national camp.<\/p>\n
\u201cSardar is an immensely experienced midfielder. His presence in the midfield will give a lot of motivation to others. He has the ability to give long, skilful passes,\u201d Manpreet told PTI before leaving for the Champions Trophy.<\/p>\n
Sardar has been brought back to bolster the team\u2019s midfield for the tournament, beginning June 23.<\/p>\n
Asked about India\u2019s chances in the prestigious event, where they stood second best in the last edition, Manpreet said the team is aiming for a podium finish.<\/p>\n
But he knows it is not going to be an easy task, considering the competitiveness of all the 16 participating nations.<\/p>\n
Manpreet was the captain of the Indian team in the Gold Coast Games, where things didn\u2019t go according to plans for the erstwhile powerhouse of the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cCommonwealth Games was not good for us. We missed far too many goals. Also, we converted far too less penalty corners. We have worked very hard on scoring goals and converting penalty corners during the training sessions here at Sports Authority of India,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
After the CWG failure, Manpreet was replaced by PR Sreejesh as the skipper for the last edition of the Champions Trophy.<\/p>\n
But the stylish midfielder doesn\u2019t have any qualms on losing out captaincy, saying he is still learning the tricks of the trade.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, I do not have any regrets losing captaincy. When I was a captain I used to stick to the team\u2019s game plan. I will do the same as a player too. Sreejesh was captain earlier and is an experienced player. I have lot to learn from him about captaincy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A team man to the core, Manpreet Singh has no qualms about losing captaincy and feels returning veteran Sardar Singh\u2019s presence in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34853,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34852"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34854,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34852\/revisions\/34854"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}