India women keep hopes alive with win

GOLD COAST: In sport sometimes you lose and we have to bounce back. Today (Friday) our defensive structure was good and we played a controlled game. RANI, India skipper on the win

Coach Harendra Singh’s pep talk after giving the players a earful seems to have worked as the women’s hockey team bounced back with a better performance on Friday.

Stunned by lowly Wales in their opening encounter, the team put its campaign back on track by defeating Malaysia 4-1 in the second round-robin match in Pool A.

There were some jitters as India scored in sixth minute but were thwarted repeatedly by the Malaysians for more than 30 minutes. Malaysia levelled before the Indians woke up to sound the board three times to seal victory.

Penalty corner specialist Gurjit Kaur struck a brace while skipper Rani and fellow forward Lalremsiami scored a goal each while Rashid Nuraini got the equaliser for Malaysia.

It was a good result as India had to win all their matches to remain in hunt for a spot in the semi-final.

England are expected to top the table in this group as they are highest-ranked team.

Skipper Rani was relieved after bouncing back from Thursday’s setback against Wales.

“It was quite a bad day, but in sport sometimes you lose and we now have to bounce back. Today (Friday) our defensive structure was good and we played a controlled game,” she said.

“We were quite bad (against Wales) and that does not reflect our rankings. The coach was very angry and later asked us to just forget that match and concentrate on the remaining matches,” said senior player Deepika.