Rio Olympics: Indian women's hockey team faces Japan in opener

Rio de Janeiro: India will open their campaign against Japan in the women’s hockey competition at the Rio Olympic Games here on Sunday. Interestingly, India qualified for this mega event after a long gap of 36 year by beating Japan 1-0 in the World Hockey League at Antwerp. India are drawn in Pool B with Argentina, Australia, Great Britain, USA and Japan while Pool A consists of the Netherlands, New Zealand, China, Korea, Germany and Spain. Another win against Japan in their opener will make things a bit easy for India and help keep them alive in the competition. Way back in 1980 Moscow, India had finished fourth, the one and only Olympic competition that they have played in before. India certainly has more than enough quality in their ranks to trouble the top teams. In fact, their opponents will need to figure out exactly how to stop free scoring attacking duo Vandana Katariya and 21-year-old strike partner Rani Rampal, two of the most prolific goal scorers in the game. Poonam Rani, the highest-capped player, Anuradha Devi Thokchom and young Preeti Dubey complete the attack line. Captain Sushila Chanu has Deep Grace Ekka, Deepika Thakur, Namita Toppo and Sunita Lakra giving her company in the deep defence, while Savita Punia is very dependable under the bars. In the absence of the versatile skipper and playmaker Ritu Rani, who was dropped rather unceremoniously at the eleventh hour by coach Neil Hawgood, the midfield will be monitored by Navjot Kaur, Lilima Minz, Monika, Nikki Pradhan and Renuka Yadav. Sushila Chanu admits that there are lot of expectations from this team. “The fans want us to perform well in these Games,” she said. "I have given 33 interviews in a day, something I'm not used to. However, we have to perform well so that no one can point fingers at us or say that we qualified by chance.” However, it will be a tough call for the Indian girls to make it to the quarter-final knockout round as they are 13 ranked team at Rio. They will need at least two wins to move to the next level and for that their target should be Japan and the USA. The Indians have beaten both these teams in the run up to the Rio Olympics. Coach Neil Hawgood refused to speculate but said, “I have told the girls to give their best on the field and perform up to your potential.”