BHUBANESWAR: "Injury is the part of sports we have to carry out in the FIH Odisha Hockey Men's World Cup at Bhubaneswar-Rourkela," said Indian Head Coach Graham Reid.
Ahead of India's crucial crossover match against New Zealand on Sunday, Hockey India announced the replacement of important midfielder Hardik Singh who sustained a hamstring injury during India's match against England on January 15th. However, Raj Kumar Pal is going to replace Hardik.
Talking about the decision made by the team management, Ried said, "Overnight we had to make the difficult decision of replacing Hardik Singh in the Indian Team for Sunday's match vs New Zealand, and the subsequent World Cup matches."
Not only India but even South Africa, Malaysia, France, Korea and New Zealand had injury concerns this World Cup. The 21-year-old South African, Senzwesihle Ngubane, was replaced by Luke Wynford. Earlier, the Malaysian forward Shahril Saabah was injured, and Shahmie Irfan Suhaimi joined the team. Similarly, France made a replacement for Stanislas Branicki with Timothee Clement. Kyubeom Kim, who plays for South Korea, had Byunghin Jeon replacing him. Even the 31-year-old Kiwi veteran Jake Smith was replaced by Connor Greentree.