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As the Indian women's hockey team embarks on another mission - a podium finish at the Commonwealth Games 2022 - the team's first goal will be to better their recent performance at the FIH Women's World Cup.
India finished ninth, one place lower than where they finished in the last edition, after an underwhelming performance.
Navneet Kaur was one of the standout performers at the World Cup. She was agile, versatile and made many menacing runs into the opponent's circle. However, a lack of support and poor finishing meant her efforts were in vain.
Navneet scored a brace against Japan in India's 9-12th place classification match and said she was happy to contribute to the team's cause. She told IANS:
“I am happy I could contribute to the team’s result. There are many takeaways from the way we played in the World Cup. We will work on bettering our performance at the Commonwealth Games."
India began their World Cup campaign with a 1-1 draw against England and China. A 3-4 loss to New Zealand marked the end of their league engagements.
India had a chance to enter the quarter-finals by beating Spain in a crossover match despite finishing third in the group stage. However, the side lost the crucial game to Spain 1-0. Speaking about the result, Navneet said:
“When we lost the match against Spain, we were utterly disappointed but knew we had to quickly put that match behind us and focus on the upcoming games against Canada and Japan. The only thing we wanted was to register good wins against these two teams and finish our World Cup campaign on a positive note."
In their last two classification matches, India beat China 3-2 in an epic shoot-out and later beat Japan 3-1 in their final classification match to finish ninth in the World Cup.
Lot of takeaways before the Commonwealth Games 2022
The Savita Punia-led Indian women's hockey team will kick off their Commonwealth Games 2022 campaign against Ghana on July 29.
Get the complete Commonwealth Gammes 2022 schedule here.
India's biggest flaw in the World Cup campaign was their inability to consistently convert penalty corner chances and failing to convert half-chances. The Janneke Schopman-led think-tank will want to address these issues before the marquee event.
Gurjit Kaur and Deep Grace Ekka have formed a lethal set-piece pair. However, their lack of thunderous hits and the former's predictable shots on target were also some chinks in India's armor.
The Indian team's defense has been on cue as their defenders have done well to avoid leaking penalty corners and haven't given away easy goals to the opposition.
With the Birmingham Commonwealth Games around the corner, the Indian women's hockey team have a lot of work to do. The players will want to raise their game like they did at the Tokyo Olympics last year.
