After a couple of engaging contests against them, the Indian women’s team suffered a crunching 7-0 defeat at the hands of a merciless Great Britain side today as their preparatory tour of England came to a shattering conclusion.
Having lost every encounter in the series so far, the Blueskirts took the field looking to salvage some pride in what would be their last match on the trot before leaving for the next venues ahead of the Summer Games in Rio.
The Britons, however, had other ideas which they executed without the Indian eves troubling them too much en route to a 7-0 crushing of the visitors.
Picking up right from where they had left proceedings in the earlier matches, which they had notable difficulty in winning, the home team initiated the rout via a Shona Mccallin strike from open play in the 12th minute followed by a 28th-minute penalty corner conversion by Susannah Townsend to put India 2-0 behind at half-time.
As the second half got underway, Crista Cullen and Kate Walsh scored successive penalty-corner goals before Helen Walsh found the net in the 44th minute to stretch the Britishers’ lead to that of an imposing 5 goals to none.
Conceding thrice in the 3rd quarter, the defensive woes continued till the last minute for India as Canterbury midfielder struck two more in the 50th and 60th minute to finish off an impressive hat-trick, thus inflicting a humiliating 7-0 defeat on a lacklustre Indian side.
Led by Ritu Rani, the team will now travel to Australia to play their Olympic groupmates Australia and Japan in an effort to close the loose ends before the Rio Olympics.
