Defending champions India are drawn with title contenders and hosts Holland in the same pool of the 16-team junior hockey World Cup scheduled to be held in Rotterdam from June 29 to July 10.

India, who won the title in Hobart in 2001, are pitted in Pool D alongwith Holland, Poland and Egypt, International Hockey Federation said in a release.

"Pool allocations were made following the Men's Junior Pan American championships in Cuba, the fifth and final continental qualifying event for the tournament," the release said.

"Rankings used to decide the composition of the pools based on a combination of the results of various Continental Federation qualifying tournaments and the known respective strengths of the various federations and national associations," the release added.

Europe has the most number of participants in the World Cup with six, while Asia has four representations and Pan America, three.

Africa would be represented by South Africa and Egypt, while Australia is the lone team from the Oceania.

Based on their performance at the European qualifying tournament, Spain and Germany [Images] have been ranked one and two as top seeds in their respective pools and Oceania champion, Australia, the third seed.

"The most competitive of the pools appears to include Germany, Argentina (Pan American champions), South Africa and Malaysia," the release said.

Each team will play every other team in its pool once, before the top three progress to the next phase. The fourth placed teams in each pool will play off for 13th to 16th positions.

In the second phase, the 12-teams would be split into two groups. Teams will take forward the points earned against qualified teams from their pool and then play the remaining teams not from their original pool to complete five preliminary round matches, the release said. The matches schedule would be announced shortly.

The top two teams in each six-tem group at the end of the second phase will progress to the semi-finals.

In the 26-year history of the Junior world cup, Germany has dominated winning the title on four occasions and Pakistan Australia and India have won once each.

Following are the groups with seedings in bracket

Pool-A: Spain (1), England [Images] (8), Korea (9) and Mexico (16)

Pool-B: Germany (2), Argentina (7), South Africa (10) and Malaysia (15)

Pool-C: Australia (3), Pakistan (6), Belgium (11) and Chile (14)

Pool-D: India (4), Netherlands (5), Poland (12) and Egypt (13).  

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