Surprised and thrilled at the same time: Manpreet Singh

Manpreet Singh is one of the top midfielders in international hockey and the engine of the Indian team.
On Thursday, the Indian skipper, who has become a fan favourite with his consistent performances in recent times, was named the FIH Player of the Year (2019) award, the first Indian to get this honour. The 27-year-old got more votes than Belgium's Arthur van Doren and Lucas Vila of Argentina.

"I am a bit surprised and thrilled at the same time. I don't know how to react. It is a huge honour. Hockey is not an individual sport, so I would like to dedicate this to my team. We are playing some fantastic hockey," Manpreet told TOI.
In 2019, Manpreet led the team to victory in the FIH Series Finals and the Olympic qualifiers, which helped India secure a spot in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. India also reached the final of the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup and won the Olympic test event in Tokyo last year. They went on to win five matches on the trot in Antwerp, Belgium, where they played three matches against the hosts and two against Spain.

This is turning out to be a great week for Indian hockey. Just a couple of days ago, Indian women's hockey team's striker Lalremsiami and Indian men's team midfielder Vivek Sagar Prasad had bagged the FIH Rising Star of the Year awards.
"It is truly humbling to see Indian hockey get so many accolades and awards. Our youngsters Lalremsiami and Vivek got the rising star awards. Last month, our women's team captain Rani Rampal won the prestigious 'World Games Athlete of the Year' award. It shows our hockey is moving in the right direction," said Manpreet.

Manpreet, who made his international debut in 2011, has won 263 caps for the national team and has played two Olympics - London 2012 and Rio 2016. He wants to make Tokyo 2020 memorable.
"Since the day I started playing hockey, I cherished the dream of winning an Olympics medal for the country. We registered back-to-back victories over world No. 3 Netherlands in the FIH Hockey Pro League and also went on to beat world champions Belgium once. We lost the second game to Belgium but we showed great character. We have now moved up to fourth in the world rankings. It is heart-warming and motivating," said the star from Jalandhar.

Manpreet said there are some areas that the team needs to work on. "We need to be clinical at both ends of the goal," he said. "We also lack consistency. Our defence was superb in the first game against Belgium but we conceded soft goals in the next leg. In attack too, we are not converting enough chances. If we want to win a medal in the Olympics, we have to be more disciplined and ruthless in our approach," said Manpreet.
"We are playing Australia next. We don't have a good record against them in the recent past. It will be good test for the team to see the progress we have made," he added.
India will host Australia on February 22 and 23 at Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneshwar.