Hockey India on Tuesday announced a 24-member Indian team led by Manpreet Singh for the FIH Pro League match to be played on 21 and 22 February against the second-placed Australia team in the world rankings. Harmanpreet Singh will be the vice-captain of the team for the match to be played at Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar. Recently, India has reached fourth place in the world rankings. In the last match of FIH Pro League, the Indian team had defeated the world champions Belgium 2–1 in the first match and suffered a 2-3 defeat in the second match. The 24-member squad includes veteran players like Amit Rohidas, Surendra Kumar, Birendra Lakra, Harmanpreet Singh, Varun Kumar, Gurinder Singh and Rupinder Pal Singh besides goalkeepers PR Sreejesh and Krishna Pathak.

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The team also includes Vivek Sagar Prasad, Hardik Singh, Chinglensana Singh, Raj Kumar Pal, Akashdeep Singh, Sumit, Lalit Upadhyay, Gursahibjit Singh, Dilpreet Singh, SV Sunil, Jermanpreet Singh, Simranjit Singh, Neelakanta Sharma and Ramandeep Singh.

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The team's head coach Graham Reid said that after playing a close match against the world champions, we will face another strong team. He said that we have again given a place to strong players in the team who can provide us good balance throughout the match and can help us to compete in one of the best teams in the world.

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