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India hopes to qualify for World Cup

By Our Sports Reporter

NEW DELHI NOV. 12. Despite Australia being in contention, India hopes to grab one of the two berths to the World Cup polo championship, to be held in France next August. India and Australia will fight it out with Iran, Singapore and host Pakistan, in the World Cup Qualifier for Zone `D' (Asia, Africa and Oceania), in Lahore from December 4 to 11.

Strong contenders, New Zealand and South Africa, have also entered for the qualifier but they have yet to confirm their travel plans. South Africa and New Zealand have expressed their apprehensions about the security scenario in Pakistan.

As regards to India, it has realistic chances of making it to the World Cup considering it had dominated Pakistan in the recent past. In the 2002 World Cup qualifiers, held in Jaipur, India had defeated Pakistan and the rest of the field to qualify. Since Australia (Melbourne) was the host, it did not figure in the qualifiers. Two teams from the Lahore qualifiers will make it to the French event.

Indian team, which finished eighth in the last World Cup in Melbourne, has had an extensive training programme under Argentine coach Juan Fernandes Ocampo. The eight-member team had been to Argentina for a one-and-a-half month training programme and then played a few tournaments in England. Again they went back to Argentina for a three-week session where the Indians played friendly matches with 20-goal Argentine local teams.

"We are well prepared for the qualifiers but our only worry is the less time we would get to acclimatise with the ponies provided by the organisers,'' said team member Ravi Rathore.

The Indians are scheduled to leave for Lahore only after November 24.

The team (figures in parenthesis denotes handicap): Shamsheer Ali (+5), Sameer Suhag (+5), Vishal Singh (+5), Basheer Ali (+4), Capt. Navjit Sandhu (+4), Bhavani Singh Kalvi (+2), Ravi Rathore (+2), and Simran Shergill (+2).

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