Converting penalty corners helped our confidence, says Harmanpreet Singh

India men’s hockey team maintained a 100 percent winning record on their Belgium tour, winning all five of their matches. Among the individual brilliance on the tour, Harmanpreet Singh stood out with his terrific success at penalty-corner conversions, including two goals each in the emphatic 5-1 and 6-1 wins over Spain.

"Individually we have worked a lot on penalty corners. We converted the chances we got there (on Belgium tour), which has helped our confidence because we won against two top teams," Harmanpreet said to the TOI.

23-year-old Harmanpreet, who dreamt of being a forward but turned out to be a talented defender for the Indian team, has been among the most consistent players coming through from the junior team that won the 2016 World Cup. He revealed how the Indian team has been working in training to avoid last-minute heartbreaks.

"For that (conceding late goals), there's been work done all around, including with the forward line and midfielders, so that when we don't have the ball, how to still keep the pressure up, how to defend counter-attacks.”

Harmanpreet further lauded the team for working hard on the tour and coming out with victories in all the matches. "Also our re-tackling, it was very good on this tour. The forwards were quickly falling back to defend, midfielders dropped back to prevent circle penetrations. So it has been a team effort to fix those problems with drills during the camp before we left for Belgium," said Harmanpreet.