New Zealand, January 17: The Indian men’s hockey team will aim to kickstart their Four Nations Invitational Tournament on a promising note when they lock horns with Japan in their opening match at the Blake Park here. It should be noted that India has a good record against Japan as they had begun their successful outing in Men’s Asia Cup last year with a comfortable 5-1 win.

After four days of training at the venue and getting used to the conditions in New Zealand, drag-flicker Rupinder Pal Singh had earlier expressed that the team are ready to make a winning start in the tournament where they play Belgium and New Zealand apart from Japan in two separate Five-Day Series.

India had a stellar 2017 season as they bagged the Asia Cup title besides also clinching a bronze medal at the Hockey World League Finals (HWL). The tournament will also see former captain PR Sreejesh making a return to the side, after being forced to miss a major part of last season due to a knee injury.

The two squads are as follows:

Indian squad: PR Sreejesh, Krishan Bahadur Pathak, Harmanpreet Singh, Surender Kumar, Gurinder Singh, Varun Kumar, Rupinderpal Singh, Birendra Lakra, Manpreet Singh(C), Chinglensana Singh Kangujam (VC), Vivek Sagar Prasad, Harjeet Singh, Nilakanta Sharma, Simranjeet Singh, Satbir Singh, Dilpreet Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Mandeep Singh, Lalit Kumar Upadhyay and Armaan Qureshi.

Japan squad: Suguru Shinmoto,Takashi Yoshimoto, Manabu Yamashita, Hirotaka Zendana, Masaki Ohashi, Yoshikazu Ito, Shota Yamada, Yoshiki Kirishita, Genki Mitani, Kazuma Murata, Suguru Hoshi, Seren Tanaka, Hiromasa Ochiai, Tsubasa Yamamizu, Kenta Tanaka, Kenji Kitazato, Heita Yoshihara, Yuki Wakuri, Kentaro Fukuda and Koshi Yamasaki.