India-US women's hockey tie in Delhi

India's crucial three-match series against the United States, which will determine the last team to qualify for next year's women's World Cup hockey, will be held in Delhi.

India finished seventh -- the last qualifying place - in the just-concluded qualifier in France, after Lithuania were suspended due to technical reasons.

Before the tournament the organizers announced that the top six teams would qualify directly for the 10th World Cup at Perth in November-December 2002 while the seventh position holder would have to play a series against the U.S, who could not make it to the tournament because of the terrorists attacks in their country.

"The venue will be New Delhi because we have all the facilities available here," Amrit Bose, secretary of the Indian Women's Hockey Federation, said. "But the dates will be decided only next week."

India were to play the winner of the Lithuania-Ireland match for the seventh place, but that match was not completed due to a technical blunder involving the sequence of penalty-strokes. After the first set of tiebreakers did not break the deadlock, Lithuania won the second 6-5 but with a wrong sequence of strokes.

Ireland's complaint was upheld and the two teams were asked to take another set of penalty-strokes. But Lithuania did not turn up, thinking it had won the match, prompting the organizers to suspend the team and declare Ireland the winner and giving it the fifth spot.

Since Lithuania were not available to play against India, the International Hockey Federation awarded the seventh place to the latter and asked it to take on the U.S, which had withdrawn from the qualifying meet due to security reasons.

Bose said the dates for the India-U.S. match had not been decided as the three IWHF advisors had to be consulted.

"The decision will be taken most probably on Monday in consultation with chief coach A K Bansal and advisors Balkishen Singh, Jaman Lal Sharma and M P Ganesh (all former India players) who will reach here next week."

Bose said a camp would be held to prepare the Indian team for the series. It will begin on October 15, "and we will decide Monday whether to hold it in Delhi or Patiala."

England, Russia, Ukraine, Japan, Ireland and Scotland are the six teams that made it to the World Cup from the qualifying tournament.

Indo-Asian News Service

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