NEWS
SCHEDULES
COLUMNS
PREVIOUS TOURS
OTHER SPORTS
STATISTICS
INTERVIEWS
SLIDE SHOW
ARCHIVES

Indian women finish 10th

Bruce Hamilton at Milton Keynes

Russia took ninth place from India, winning 2-1 and left the Asian giants in 10th place at the Women's Hockey Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Milton Keynes on Saturday.

India finished the tournament with no wins from five matches. Nevertheless they had close results from most of its matches. In Pool A, India lost 0-1 to Ireland; 0-4 to Germany; 1-3 to Spain and 1-2 to U.S.A.

India's coach G.S. Bhangu believes the future of Indian women's hockey is in the hands of the under-21 squad.

"We have started preparing for the next Asian Games in September 2002 with the under-21 squad as the basis of the team of the future," he said.

"The lessons we have learned for Indian women's hockey from the Milton Keynes tournament are that we have to learn to play tougher hockey, we have to prepare our umpires at home to umpire the game in the way it is played internationally and we need to have more international competition for India's women's team," he said.

"Every country in this tournament plays a tougher style of hockey with the use of the body as part of the game. We must adapt to this style of play ourselves if we are to be internationally competitive," G.S.Bhangu said.

"Also the rules need to be applied to protect the skillful player when the body is being used too much," he said.

"Players in Bombay must not be discouraged by the results of this tournament. India is sure to qualify for the next World Cup and there is a bright future for Bombay players who can play in the under 21 team which will do better in the future," he said.

Russia opened with a goal in the second minute by Irina Sviridova which stunned India into playing open, attacking hockey. They relied on a quick counter-attack from intercepted passes and gaining possession from 50/50 encounters for the ball.

The combination of styles made for fast, entertaining hockey with the ball moving from end to end in the first half with both sets of attackers finding holes in the opposition defence in the middle and out wide through which to mount attacks.

Mamta Kharab equalised for India in the 18th minute with a breakaway run to score past Russia's substitute goalkeeper, Anna Radomskaia. Oxana Boika left the pitch with an injury after stopping a Marystella Tirkey drive on a penalty corner two minutes before Mamta scored.

With the score at 1-1 at half time both teams had something to prove in the second half.

Russia held possession for the first six minutes of the second half then swept into India's defensive zone. A clever midfield movement down the middle of the pitch between Tatiana Ioudovskaia, Nadejda Tchegourdaeva and Marina Tchegourdaeva moved the ball into the circle but Marina could not finish into goal past a beaten Tingonleima Ksh. Chanu.

However in the 10th minute, Nadejda Tchegourdaeva and Tatiana Ioudovskaia combined to put Tatiana Ioudovskaia in position to the right of goal to shoot under Tingonleima for what proved to be the winning goal.

Tatiana Ioudovskaia flicked over goal a minute later.

India came back through the right side in the 15th minute of the second half with well-structured movements between Jyoti Sunita Kullu and Ferdina Ekka but could not convert several possessions in the Russian circle into shots on goal.

In the entire second half, India did not make a shot on goal, either a field goal shot or a penalty corner attempt as Russia denied India possession and field position to do so.

Russia had 4 penalty corners in the first half and one in the second half and made 4 field goal shots in the match.

With these statistics it is only surprising that the score was not higher for Russia.