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The Salima Tete-led Junior Women's Hockey Team will look to better their own bronze medal-winning performance as they embark upon the 2022 FIH Women's Junior World Cup.
The World Cup will take place between April 1-12, 2022 in Potchefstroom, South Africa. India’s best performance at this prestigious hockey tournament was a bronze medal finish in 2013.
With just a day left for India to kickstart their FIH Junior World Cup campaign, the experienced Indian halfback Sushila Chanu Pukhrambam is confident that a team with a mixture of experience and rawness have a fair chance of finishing on top.
The 30-year-old ahead of India's first match against Wales, said:
"The group also consists of players who have represented the Senior Team on the big stage like the Olympics. These reasons lead me to believe that the Indian Junior Women's Hockey Team is a strong contender for the Gold Medal in the upcoming World Cup."
She said:
"This is a really tight-knit group with an excellent understanding between each other on the field, and off the field as well. They have trained together as a group for a really long time, and even played practice matches against the Senior Women's Team in the National Camp at SAI Bengaluru and in Bhubaneswar in which they have contested well."
In a Hockey India release, Sushila further added:
"The group also consists of players who have represented the Senior Team on the big stage like the Olympics. These reasons lead me to believe that the Indian Junior Women's Hockey Team is a strong contender for the Gold Medal in the upcoming World Cup."
Sushila, who was the skipper of the 2013 Junior Women's World Cup, recalled fond memories during the bronze medal campaign.
"We had the time of our lives during that Junior World Cup campaign. We were young and carefree and was completely focussed on using that competition as a platform to improve on our skills individually and as a team. Winning that medal was the biggest achievement of my life. I will never forget that game and that moment when we secured victory."
She also noted:
"The penalty shootouts were going on, and everyone in the team was huddled together in the centre of the pitch and we were all praying together."
FIH Junior Women's World Cup: Match schedule & timings
The Indian hockey squad is grouped alongside Germany, Malaysia, and Wales in Pool D.
The fixtures for the junior women's hockey team are as follows:
Match 1: India vs Wales
Date: April 2, 2022; Timings: 12:30pm IST
Match 2: India vs Germany
Date: April 3, 2022; Timings: 2:30pm IST
Match 3: India vs Malaysia
Date: April 5, 2022; Timings: 07:00pm IST
Live streaming details:
All the 2022 FIH Junior Women's World Cup matches can be streamed on https://watch.hockey
Also read: FIH Women's Junior World Cup 2022: Team India's schedule, timings and streaming deta
