Bhubaneswar: Just arriving yesterday and hitting the pitch for the first practice session at evening on the same day, the defending champions Australia did their second practice session today at Kalinga Stadium. With no sign of tiredness of their busy schedule, the Kangaroos trained harder today and worked on their various strategies.

Speaking after the training session, captain Eddie Ockenden said, “We have a good mix of experienced and semi experienced players as well as a lot of youngsters in our team. We have been performing really well so far and in-spite of some really experienced players not here with us, but we are comfortable playing with this squad. I think this is a fantastic place to play and personally one of my favourite grounds as we have some great memories here.

Speaking on playing India in the tournament, Eddie said, “India is a much improved team and they are playing well. When we played against them last month they were really good and so they are the team we are looking at closely. They are a very experienced team and if they continue playing in the same manner as they performed in the 17th Asian Games and the India tour of Australia, they have a strong chance to win this championship as well.”

Commenting on the Hero Men’s Champions Trophy, Coach graham reid said, “We have won this championship 5 times in a row and the main aim this time would be to keep that going and take the number to six. But before that we have 3 really tough pool games, the quarter finals and then the semis – a tough tournament altogether. All the teams here are fantastic and equally difficult and it is not going to be easy.

The Hero Men’s Champions Trophy 2014 will be telecasted live on Ten Sports.