Goal-scoring apart, players from Punjab have played a big part in the team’s success. Harmanpreet scored four, Rupinder three, Gurjant two, while Varun, Dilpreet, Shamsher and Simranjeet scored one each. Of the 15 Indian goals in the pool stage, 13 were scored by Punjab players. Another player from the state, Krishan Pathak, is the reserve goalkeeper. India had finished second in the pool in 1980 as well but they had garnered eight points from five matches then.Īs has become the norm in recent years, Punjab was the driving in this team too: In the 18-member squad, 10 players are from Punjab - captain Manpreet Singh, vice-captain Harmanpreet Singh, Varun Kumar, Rupinder Pal Singh, Hardik Singh, Dilpreet Singh, Gurjant Singh, Mandeep Singh, Shamsher Singh and Simranjeet Singh. This is India’s best performance in the pool stage since the 1972 Games, when they finished on top. It was a one-off bad day for India, proven by the fact that they conceded just six goals in their other four matches, while scoring 14. The only blemish for the side was their 7-1 loss to world No. They finished second in the pool with 12 points, registering four wins and one loss. 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 number climbed to nine in the CWG, Asian Games and World Cup in 2018. There were eight Punjab players in the 2014 World Cup squad and seven in the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games the same year. Over the last decade, Punjab's players have been a constant in the Indian teams. The Indian men’s hockey reached the quarterfinals at the Tokyo Olympics with a commanding performance in the pool stage, with players from Punjab powering it.
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