Despite being held by lowly Canada in their final group stage encounter, India have creared history after qualifying for the knockout stage, after 20 years. They are scheduled to play their bogey team Belgium on Sunday. However, one of their star players SV Sunil will miss the crucial match due to wrist injury, he suffered during the Canada match.
The winger was stretchered off, after crashing into sideboards, midway through the match. High performance Director Roelant Oltmans said,”It’s very difficult to say, he did injure his wrist very badly, we are racing against time to fix it. It will be a tough close call, but we are hoping he can make it. He is an integral player of our team setup, hence getting him fit is our priority.”
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Team Captain PR Sreejesh spoke about the importance of Sunil within their system. He added, “His burst of speed is an asset that can change the forward game from slow to fast at any point. This particular aspect has also a lot of different play styles based around it, so he will be a big miss. However, you were confident that he might make it in time as well.”
This comes as a major blow to the team, as they arguably face their toughest test yet. They have failed to defeat Belgium in their last three encounters. Hence, a fit Sunil could be essential in countering the European fast paced hockey system.
More to follow..
