Hockey World League Semi-Final: Rupinder Pal Singh, SK Uthappa ruled out of tournament

India’ defender Rupinder Pal Singh and midfielder SK Uthappa will miss out the Hero Hockey World League Semi Final tournament. Rupinder has been ruled out of the tournament due to hamstring injury while Uthappa returned back to attend a family emergency.

The replacements for both players have been announced and it would be Jasjit Singh Kular who will come in the squad in place of Rupinder while Sumit will come in for Uthappa.

Kular was a part of 33-member group that attained training at SAI Bangalore and has been capped 46 times for India including five goals to his name. On the other side, Sumit made his India debut 26th Sultan Azlan Shah Cup tournament and was a part of junior team that won 2016  Junior men’s World Cup.

“With a strong core group who have been working together since February this year, we have several options and I don’t see this as a setback for us at all,” said coach Roelant Oltmans ahead of India’s first encounter.

India is placed in Pool B alongside Scotland, Canada, Netherlands and Pakistan and will begin their campaign against Scotland. Coach Oltmans has already mentioned about the challenges that the team would face while playing the competition and also emphasised on starting the campaign on a positive note.

“You always want to start well in the Pool Stage. Playing a Tournament like the Hero Hockey World League Semi Final (Men) is always challenging with a number of strong teams in the competition,” Oltmans said.

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