FIH Women’s Hockey Olympic Qualifiers: India hopes to ride on fans and familiarity to book Paris ticket

Back in the city after less than two months and with a much bigger target, the Indian women’s hockey team will be hoping the massive crowd support that propelled it to the top last time around will continue when it begins its pursuit of a Paris ticket at the Olympic Qualifiers here beginning Saturday.

On Thursday, the team played its second practice match, winning 2-0 against Czech Republic after a 4-2 defeat to Germany on Tuesday. As the players and coach Janneke Schopman worked out the best possible combination, there was one interesting figure in the defence – Gurjit Kaur, the drag-flicker seemingly out of favour but here as one of the stand-byes.

With the experienced Deep Grace Ekka excluded – Schopman refused to say anything during the media interaction earlier in the day with a cryptic “Grace needs to tell herself why she is not here” — Gurjit’s presence was intriguing in as much as it showed India’s lack of options in both defence and the penalty corner department. From the outside, her fitness level and on-field performance seemed to throw up more questions than answers. With Vandana Katariya also out with injury, India’s task will be cut out over the next nine days.

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PCs were also the main focus during the interaction with Schopman reiterating her faith in Deepika while playing down expectations. “PC is an important part of the game and Rupinder (Pal Singh) is very good and experienced. It was a great help for the drag-flickers talking to him and learning from him during the camp we had before coming here. Deepika is young but I am pleased with her performance,” she insisted.

Captain Savita preferred to focus on India’s strengths. “We will definitely be counting on the crowd again, we saw how it helps lift performance during the Asian Champions Trophy. It won’t be easy because everyone is here to qualify for the Olympics but we will focus on our strengths instead of the opposition.

“Our ultimate target is to do our best to not just qualify but also do well in Paris. But we we are not looking that far ahead at the moment, we have worked hard and are focused on the immediate target here,” she added. 

Asked about favourites Germany, Savita admitted the team slipped in the practice match. “If you remember, till a few years back we would even struggle to enter their half during a game. Now we are able to challenge them and even the practice match we lost, it was because of us not sticking to our plans in the 4th quarter. So we know what we can do,” she said.