Rani strike helps India draw with USA, enter knockouts
Her 31stminute strike takes the team to third place in the pool
India women’s hockey team lived to fight another day as they drew their final group encounter with a higher-ranked USA to end in third place in their pool at the Women’s World Cup hockey.
The victory allows them to compete in crossover matches for a place in quarter-finals. Crossover matches are played between a group’s second-placed team with another group’s thirdplaced team with the winner entering the last-eight stage.
India trailed for almost half of the game. However, Rani Rampal scored from a penalty corner early in the third quarter to help them draw level and keep India in the hunt.
The Indians started brightly with forays into the US citadel but the forwards failed to breach the rival defence. India secured their first penalty corner in the seventh minute but the Americans defended well. The Americans grew in confidence and started to attack the Indian goal quite frequently, rattling the defence.
They took the early lead, scor- ing in the 11th minute through a field goal by Margaux Paolino.
India, on their part got more penalty corners but couldn’t make them count. In fact, for the initial part of the game, India had a far bigger share of penalty corners. They eventually scored in the 31st minute as Rani finally made a penalty corner count, hitting to the goalkeeper’s right, who could only get a hand.