150th International Milestone for Indian Defender Surender Kumar
Indian men’s hockey team defender Surender Kumar achieved a personal milestone of featuring in his 150th international game against Argentina in the FIH Pro League at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneshwar. He becomes the fourth player in the current national side to play in 150 internationals – the others skipper Manpreet Singh, goalkeeper PR Sreejesh and forward Akashdeep Singh. A reliable force in the Indian deep defence Surender has indeed come a long way since making his senior international debut against China in the 2013 Asian Champions Trophy at Kakamigahara, Japan.
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The 28-year-old Haryana fullback, who is employed with Food Corporation of India (FCI), became a regular feature of the Indian backline since 2016 – he featured in the 2016 Rio Olympics and played his part in India bagging a historic bronze at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
Surender has been part of several succesful campaigns of the Indian men’s hockey team – he was part of the gold-winning gold-winning 2016 Asian Champions Trophy team, gold-winning 2017 Asia Cup team, gold-winning 2018 Asian Champions Trophy team, silver-winning 2018 Champions Trophy Games team and bronze-winning 2018 Asian Games team. He had also featured in the 2018 World Cup where India had finished sixth.
