Indian women thrash Malaysia

Defender Gurjit Kaur scored twice as the Indian women’s hockey team brought its Commonwealth Games campaign back on track with a 4-1 thrashing of Malaysia in its second Pool A match here.

Kaur’s two penalty corner conversions (6th and 39th minute), out of the three chances she got, along with skipper Rani Pampal and Lalremsiami’s field goals in the 56th and 59th minute respectively helped India post a comprehensive victory.

The victory was just what the team needed to recover from the shock of its opening 2-3 loss to lower-ranked Wales.

“It’s quite a good result, in the second half we did much better. Malaysia played well in the first and second quarters and didn’t give us much space,” India captain Rani Rampal said after the muchneeded win.

Malaysia’s lone goal, in the 38th minute, also came from a defender’s stick with Nuraini Rashid converting a penalty corner. “Yesterday (Thursday) was quite a bad day, but in sport sometimes you lose and we now have to bounce back. Today our defensive structure was good and we played a controlled game,” Rani stated.

The Indian team, which has been finishing fifth for the last two editions of the Games, will be next playing England on Sunday.

Malaysia captain Siti Ruhani said her team was guilty of giving away too many chances to India. “This game was a close competitive match except for the last quarter. We gave them too many chances to score,” she said.

“The previous result against India was a 2-0 loss (2017 Asian Cup), but this performance showed we have improved,” she added.