Chief Coach Graham Reid is impressed with Indian hockey team's all-round growth and wants his players to play at the highest level while tackling Russia in the upcoming FIH Hockey Olympic Qualifiers.
The Indian team won the FIH Men's Series Finals Bhubaneswar in June and followed that with victory in the Tokyo Olympics test event in August.
The team remained unbeaten on its recent Belgium tour, where it won all five matches against the world champions hosts and world number eight Spain.
Reid said he had a lot "good takeaways" from the Belgium tour.
"Our GPS numbers were great, which means that the running, effort, speed and intensity was actually even higher than last year's World Cup. So they were very good numbers for us to see, and for the players to understand that to play at that level, you need to be achieving those consistently," said Reid.
"Another part was the consistency of our performances against Belgium and Spain, and it was good to see that we kept building momentum as the tour progressed."
Reid said they have almost completed the "debriefing" the Belgium tour