It was nothing short of a major opportunity lost. The Asian Games was the best chance for both the Indian hockey teams to win gold and earn that all-important ticket to the 2024 Paris Olympics. While the men’s team are on course, taking on holders Japan in the final today, the women suffered an embarrassing 0-4 loss in the semi-final to hosts China.
The Savita Punia-led outfit will now be under extreme pressure to make the cut for Paris through the FIH Olympic Qualifiers in either Changzhou or Valencia in January 2024. India had a brilliant opportunity of building on the unprecedented fourth place finish at the Tokyo Games but Thursday’s loss at the Gongshu Canal Sports Park Stadium halted their journey.
“Definitely not the result we were looking for. I’m quite disappointed with the performance of my team. We knew that China is a good team, but our team is quite good too. Maybe it wasn’t our day as we were not able to execute the plans we had made for this game. We gave it away,” skipper Savita said.
China may be the fourth highest ranked Asian team behind India, Japan and South Korea but the world No.12 outfit had been preparing for their home Asian Games for a couple of years. The Chinese Hockey Association (CHA) had brought on board two-time Olympic gold medallist Alyson Annan to coach the women’s outfit with coaching great Ric Charlesworth as a consultant to put together a strong team for Hangzhou as well as Paris. The result: China have reached the final in Hangzhou.
China netted four goals through Jiaqi Zhong (25th), Meirong Zou (40th), Meiyu Liang (55th) and Bingfeng Gu (60th) as the Indian forwards were barely able to make in-roads into the striking circle of the hosts.
China regularly infiltrated India’s defence by going on the offensive early that earned them eight penalty corners (PC), converting three. China continued to display their attacking prowess, maintaining pressure on India. Though the Indian defence with Nikki Pradhan and Sushila Chanu and Savita in goal tried rescuing their team in the first 24 minutes, China finally broke through with Zhong breaking the deadlock.
China continued to dominate proceedings in the second half which resulted in more goals with the Indian defence making more errors, providing more open spaces to China.
When India got their chances in PCs, Deepika – the team’s primary drag-flicker – proved too inexperienced for the stage as the 19-year-old failed to sound the board. India tried attacking in the final quarter but ended up conceding two more goals in counterattacks which sealed China’s spot in the final where they will take on five-time champions South Korea.
“We didn’t think this would happen. I can only say I’m sad, because we had a different goal in mind. We were well prepared. It’s not as though there was something missing from our training. The coach told us that the result was not what we wanted. We are disappointed, but the next (bronze medal) match is also important for us as the tournament is not over yet,” said Savita.
India will play last edition’s champions Japan in the bronze playoff on Saturday.
