Thorough preparations resulted in Hockey Junior WC win: Harjeet

Lucknow, Dec 18: A delighted India captain Harjeet Singh said on Sunday that their success in the Hockey Junior World Cup boils down to their long and arduous preparation they did for the last couple of years.

Home favourites India produced a clinical performance to outclass maiden filists Belgium 2-1 and clinched their second Under-21 World Cup title after a 15-year-gap.

India remained unbeaten in the tourment playing "simple hockey" as their head coach Harendra Singh advocates.

Centre-half Harjeet said after the match: "It is a great victory and we deserved it. We had been preparing for the tourment very dedicatedly since the last couple of years. We have improved a lot tourment-by-tourment.

"We stuck together as a group despite the difficulties and it has helped us. We played good hockey throughout the tourment and we got good support from the Lucknow crowd who supported us in good numbers here," the senior Indian intertiol added. IANS