Tokyo: The Grit of the Indian Women’s Hockey Team will be included through severe tests when needed in Australia in the Olympic quarter-final on Monday, hoping to add an unexpected victory to run a dream that has seen the side reached the last eight stages for the first time.
India finished their pool, process in fourth place with six points, rising back-to-back victory above Ireland and South Africa.
The top four teams from each pool make it to the knockout stage.
The best finished Indian women’s hockey team at the Olympics came in debut in Moscow back in 1980 when it ended in fourth place among six teams.
In the edition, only six participated teams where India finished fourth in the Round-Robin format competition without classification or matching elimination.
Here, in Tokyo, their campaign has become a story of resilience.
After losing their first three matches against the Netherlands, Germany and defending the United Kingdom champion, Indian women made a brilliant comeback, beat Ireland rated high 1-0 and beat South Africa 4-3 to look after themselves in hunting.
The place of India in the last eight rounds is guaranteed after the United Kingdom beat Ireland 2-0 in the last pool of the match.
The side of the Rani LED rampal shows the grit and determination to rise again after three consecutive defeats and this is a determination to be tested by Australia never before.
Veteran striker Vandana Kataria became the first of the country in a woman’s hockey to score a hat-trick and helped the cause of his team.
And come tomorrow Vandana will look for a good trip in the competition.
Throughout the tournament, Indians have created many chances to score goals, both from a penalty or play open, but they don’t have finishing.
The forward line led by Rani has been impressive in all stages of the pool but people like Sharmila Devi, Lalremsami and Rani themselves have wasted many opportunities.
Indians are also under par with a conversion of a penalty angle so far with Drag-Flicker Gurjit Kaur looking for his pale shadow.
The team secured 33 a penalty angle so far from five collections of collections that managed to take advantage of only four opportunities with all goals that came through variations.
But it comes Monday, Gurjit must be the best if India desires to qualify for an unprecedented semi-final place in the match.
Going Ranking, World No.4 Australia will start as a favorite of the number 10 Indian ratings.
But India can take the heart of their last sightseeing against Australia which ended in a 2-2 draw at the Tokyo Olympics test in August 2019.
Australia, on the other hand, will enter the match on Monday, confident with all-win notes.
Australians have so far scored 13 goals and just conceded one.
On the other hand, India conceded 14 goals and only scored seven, and had to be careful of Australians, who had scored the highest number together in the group stage, behind only the Dutch.
Indian head coach Sjoerd Marijne feels the knockout stage will be very different from the group stage.
“The tournament starts again.
If you play well, or not good in the pool match doesn’t matter, it starts,” he said after a victory in Japan.
“It will be another type of game because of high pressure, everything or not at all.
The good thing is that we have it in the last two matches, so we have experienced it.”