Women’s Hockey World Cup: India face tricky China, eye 1st win

PTI

Amstelveen, July 4

Their defensive prowess on display in the 1-1 draw against Olympics bronze medallists England, India would look to up their attacking game and register first win of the Women’s Hockey World Cup when they take on China here tomorrow.

The Indians produced a superlative defensive performance, spearheaded by skipper and goalkeeper Savita Punia, against England in their opening Pool B match on Sunday. The likes of vice-captain Deep Grace Ekka, Nikki Pradhan, Gurjit Kaur and Udita dished out an excellent performance, denying England a single penalty corner in the entire match.

Their only blemish was the ninth minute goal they conceded when Isabelle Petter neatly deflected in a pass from outside the D.

Barring that, it was a near-perfect effort against an England side which had almost the same set of players that featured in the Tokyo Olympics.

However, India didn’t quite fire up front as the penalty corner conversion rate suggested — they managed to score just once from the seven short corners they got, with Vandana Katariya getting the equaliser from a rebound in the 28th minute.

India did create a lot of chances but the forwardline failed to utilise most of them. In the 56th minute, Sharmila Devi wasted a golden opportunity as she failed to get her stick onto a fine pass from a teammate.

Going by the form and rankings, world No. 8 India will definitely start as favourites against China but complacency is something the Savita-led side would look to avoid.

It was India who came out on top in their last two meetings. India had thrashed China 7-1 in their FIH Pro League tie before winning the second match of the double-header 2-1 in Muscat, Oman.

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