If a 2-0 lead was not enough, Navneet, with a beautiful field strike, found the back of the net again just two minutes from the final whistle and locked things in favour of India.
Indian women's hockey team players. (Photo: Twitter/@TheHockeyIndia)
Riding on striker Navneet Kaur’s brace on Wednesday, the Indian women’s hockey team outplayed hosts New Zealand 3-0 in the last match of the five-match tour in Auckland.
After a goalless opening two quarters, Navneet finally broke the deadlock for India in the 45th minute. Soon after, youngster Sharmila struck a powerful shot past New Zealand goalkeeper in the 54th minute to double the lead for guests.
If a 2-0 lead was not enough, Navneet, with a beautiful field strike, found the back of the net again just two minutes from the final whistle and locked things in favour of India.
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“The team ensured a good ending to the tour and I am happy we produced three goals against New Zealand in the last match. This tour gave us a good insight about where we need to improve and one of the things is to create faster play than we do now,” expressed chief coach Sjoerd Marijne reflecting on the team’s performance in the five-match tour as quoted by IANS.
India had thrash New Zealand Development squad 4-0 in their opening match of the tour before suffering close 1-2 and 0-1 defeats to the home senior team. In the penultimate game of the tour, skipper Rani Rampal’s lone strike handed India a 1-0 win over Great Britain.
Expressing his observations about the team’s performance during the tour, Marijne said, “Sometimes we tend to keep the ball too long on the stick and then we create pressure to our own self. We need to avoid that by passing faster.”
“On the defence side, we need to be a bit calmer and need to improve how we tackle. We will have a four-week camp after a short break now when we return home. We will be working on these points during the forthcoming camp apart from a few other aspects,” he added.
(With agency inputs)
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