ROURKELA: Jugraj Singh was part of the World Cup squad as one of the alternate players and didn't get a chance to play. Even then, he was completely involved in the process, and like everybody it was tough for him to accept the loss against New Zealand in the crossovers.
So tough that he didn't even speak with his family for the first few days.
"I couldn't talk to my family for 2-3 days in the beginning. They all knew what had happened and they were hurt too. I just kept thinking about the final moments of the game. So that's why we are now just focussed on the days ahead and want to make sure days such as those don't come in the future again," said the 26-year-old.
But with the classification matches still to go, they had to pull themselves up and they did that by speaking a lot among themselves and with the coaches.
"Despite all that, the day will remain to be a sad day for us but we want to be focussed on the future now," he added.
Going forward, the team has got off to a great start following their World Cup debacle so far as they earned three back-to-back wins in FIH Pro League mini-tournament here. They will be playing Australia on Wednesday again in their last game of the mini-tournament and another win will do a lot of good to their morale.
Asked what was the team's aim ahead of this tournament, Jugraj said, "With the Asian Games coming up, we were highly focussed on doing well. We made mistakes during the World Cup and we have been working on them during the Pro League matches."
India have been truly impressive in these three matches scoring a total of 14 goals of which Jugraj scored two goals. The first was from a penalty stroke against Australia and the next was from a penalty corner against Germany as India won 6-3.
Jugraj also did quite well throughout last year when he made his debut. Although he was unable to score in the first match, he earned a hat-trick in his second game.
A drag flicker himself, Jugraj has also been trying to gain as much knowledge as possible from Harmanpreet Singh.
"I have great chemistry with Harmanpreet. He is the best dragger in the world currently. I learn a lot from him and makes me understand everything in a proper manner. He is like a teacher from whom I am learning as much as possible," added Jugraj.
One of the most promising players in the squad, Jugraj will hopefully play a major role in the coming days as the squad goes through a transition under the new head coach Craig Fulton, who is expected to take charge of the team by the end of this month.
