Indian women’s hockey team goalkeeper Savita believes that the team has a strong core group to manage its 2022 engagements. ,
The Indian women’s team will start the year with the Asia Cup in Muscat, Oman this month. They are the defending champions and will compete with seven continental teams – China, Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore – for the top honors.
The Asia Cup will be played in a two-pool format with cross-over classification matches. The Continental event is a qualifying tournament for the FIH Women’s World Cup 2022 to be held in Spain and the Netherlands in July.
The top four teams in Muscat will qualify for the World Cup.
“In 2017, we won the Asia Cup to earn direct qualification for the FIH Women’s World Cup in London. I think the win was a step for us to establish a steady growth in our performance over the past four years. Definitely starting the season on a good note in the Asia Cup will give us the right momentum as we play the tournament consistently.”
With the Birmingham Commonwealth Games due in July and the Asian Games (2024 Paris Olympic qualification event) in Hangzhou, China two months later, Savita says the core group’s strengths should come in handy during the busy season. India will also play the FIH Women’s Nations Cup in Valencia, Spain in December.
“No doubt, it will be a very busy season and we have started our preparations for it with full dedication. We have a very young and promising batch of players who have come into the 60 players camp and it will be interesting to see who will eventually make it to the final core group of 33. To be a good core group in such a busy year. “It means a lot in terms of making sure that our performance doesn’t go down whenever someone needs to fill in another player,” Savita said.
Savita said the players are looking forward to participating in the FIH Hockey Pro League for the first time. After the Asia Cup, the women’s team will move to Bhubaneswar, Odisha where they will play home matches in the FIH Hockey Pro League.
“I think a lot of us are looking forward to matches. This will be our first match in this prestigious league and we are absolutely looking forward to playing some of the best teams in the world. Needless to say, We look forward to playing in Odisha again and to see world No 1 team Netherlands travel to India for these matches is something we never imagined,” said Savita.
India will take on Netherlands, Spain, Germany and England in Bhubaneswar after which they will travel to Belgium and the Netherlands to play against Belgium, Argentina and the US in June.
“I think Pro League matches will give us the best performance before the World Cup (in July). Last time we made it to the quarter-finals for the first time in many decades. With our recent performance in the Olympics and the support we have received, we need to live up to the expectations by doing well in these major events to keep our interest in women’s hockey alive.”
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