How Rajinder graduated to become key to India’s plans

Rajinder Singh is quite the new blue-eyed boy of the Indian hockey team. How else can one explain the attacking midfielder getting picked over double Olympic bronze medallists Shamsher Singh and Gurjant Singh for the ongoing Asia Cup.

- Sandip Sikdar

But the team management has solid reasons. Compared to influential former India midfielder and skipper Sardar Singh, Rajinder showed tremendous skill at the domestic level, then at national camps and now in the national team. This has led the RP Singh-chaired selection committee, chief coach Craig Fulton and skipper Harmanpreet Singh to put their faith in the 22-year-old, who also hails from the same village as Sardar - Sant Nagar in Haryana’s Sirsa district.

Coincidentally, it was because of his idol that Rajinder began his journey in hockey, growing up playing on a pitch laid by Sardar at Sirsa’s Namdhari Academy which Rajinder joined in 2014.