ROURKELA : The men's hockey team will travel to Australia for a five-match Test series in April. This will be a key part of their Olympics preparation before the team heads to England to finish the rest of their Pro League fixtures. As per an initial Memorandum of Understanding between the two nations, Australia were scheduled to play in India for a series of games but that idea was scuppered to get them attuned to playing matches away from home.
"I think there was an MOU or something for them to travel to India at some point but we felt because the Olympics is outside and the other FIH tournaments are outside India, we need to get used to playing outside India," coach Craig Fulton said. "The next World Cup is outside India, the Olympics is outside India... if you look at the next two-four years, everything is outside India so you better get used to doing it (playing outside India)."
After they finish with the India-leg of the Pro League fixtures on February 25, there's going to be a three-month break in the calendar. It's understood that the team will travel to Australia during this three-month break. Also, once they complete the last of the Pro League matches on June 9, the current plan is to travel to The Netherlands for two warm-up games against them.
While the eight Pro League games in India will enable the coaching staff to essentially lock the team for the Games, the remaining few will be pencilled in if they impress in that Australia series. "Why don't you want to play them," he said when asked if playing them in Australia was a deliberate choice.
Interestingly, this block of games is also serving another purpose of giving players the opportunity to stake their place across multiple positions — "building depth in a few areas" in Fulton's own words — to guard against the threat of injuries.
"You don't want to pick up injuries and then look around and see who's ready to play," he said, explaining his rationale behind such a move. In the ongoing competition, the likes of Hardik Singh and Manpreet Singh have already interchanged positions multiple times.
And considering the squad benefited from the presence of Paddy Upton previously, the mental coach will be a regular fixture from April till the end of the Olympics. "We will see him in Australia and he will be with us in the whole build to Paris," Fulton confirmed.