Hockey World Cup 2023: Punjab players continue to dominate national team

It’s difficult to imagine an Indian hockey team without a host of Punjab players as the state has given the national team some gems that won them accolades aplenty. In the pre and post-Independence era, known as the golden age of Indian hockey, when India won six back-to-back gold medals between 1928 and 1956, Balbir Singh Senior is the biggest star of the team from the province with a hat-trick to his name in the Olympic finals; making him an exclusive member in company of hockey legend Major Dhayan Chand. Balbir, who hailed from Jalandhar district, won three consecutive Olympic gold medals (1948 London, 1952 Helsinki, and 1956 Melbourne). During this era, there were several other notable names in the team including Gurmit Singh Kular, Gurcharan Singh Garewal, Gurdev Singh Kular, Udham Singh Kular, Bakshish Singh, Charanjit Singh, Jaswant Singh, Joginder Singh, Prithipal Singh, among others. However, Balbir’s Sing goal-scoring spree made him the stand-out star and inspired generations to come as Jalandhar soon became the ‘home of hockey’. Also read: Hockey World Cup records and trivia from previous editions Between 1956 and 1980, India won two more gold medals (1964 Tokyo and 1980 Moscow) and the maiden and sole Hockey World Cup title in 1975. Punjab continued to provide talent to the national team. This included the team’s captain Ajitpal Singh, Harcharan Singh, Varinder Singh, Surjit Singh among others. Then came the gap of 41 years when India went without a significant international title to their name until the Tokyo Olympics when the side won the historic bronze medal to break the drought. However, the presence of players from the region never diminished as they continued to play a role in revival of Indian hockey in the 21st century. This notably included Jugraj Singh, Sardar Singh, Deepak Thakur, Harjeet Singh, Rajpal Singh among others. Also read: India Squad, Schedule, Past Records and more In the last decade, Indian hockey has been among the high-ranking teams in the world and the impact of Punjab players were telling with eight names featuring in the 2014 World Cup followed by seven each at the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games the same year.  The number climbed to nine in the CWG, Asian Games and World Cup in 2018. The same has been the case with the junior team – the 2013 junior World Cup team had 12 Punjab players, while the gold-winning team in the 2016 edition had 11 players from the state. The presence of Punjabi players was again notable in the squad at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. In fact the highest-ever by any state with 11 players featuring in the squad, including the captain Manpreet Singh and vice-captain Harmanpreet Singh. The other remaining names were Rupinderpal Singh, Simranjeet Singh, Dilpreet Singh, Mandeep Singh, Gurjant Singh, Hardik Singh, Samsher Singh, Varun Kumar and Krishan Pathak. At the upcoming hockey World Cup, despite a change in captaincy, India have retained the core team from the Olympic success, which also means that players from the northern belt will feature prominently once again. With 10 players featuring in the 18-member squad, Harmanpreet will be leading the team with Manpreet focussing on scoring from the front. The other remaining names are Krishan Bahadur Pathak, Jarmanpreet Singh,  Hardik Singh, Shamsher Singh, Akashdeep Singh, Mandeep Singh, Sukhjeet Singh and Jugraj Singh (alternate player) Read all the Latest News****, Trending News****, Cricket News****, Bollywood News****, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook****, Twitter and Instagram****.