LONDON: India's ace drag flicker and defender
Rupinder Pal Singh
, and midfielder
SK Uthappa
have been ruled out of the Hero
Hockey World League Semi-Final
, commencing on Thursday.
While
Rupinder
will be unavailable for the tournament due to a hamstring injury,
Uthappa
had to return home to attend to a family emergency.
India are scheduled to take on Scotland in their first match on Thursday.
Rupinder will be replaced by defender
Jasjit Singh Kular
, who also doubles up as a drag flicker for the team.
Kular, who was a part of the 33-member core group that trained in SAI Bengaluru, has played 46 international matches for India with five goals against his name.
In place of Uthappa, Sumit, who made his senior team debut at the 26th Sultan Azlan Shah Cup tournament, will come in.
Sumit had a successful 2016 with the junior team, which won the Junior men's World Cup.
"With a strong core group who have been working together since February this year, we have several options and I don't see this as a setback for us at all," said coach Roelant Oltmans ahead of India's first encounter.
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