Boarding the flight first time ever for 14 girls
Most girls of her age-group would be conscious about their looks, their clothes, their fashion statement, number of their Orkut friends or at the most, about the college where they want admission. Amubi Devi is a bit different.
Lot of different in fact.
This teenager belongs to Manipur, the state which is quite advanced than most of the other states in its own way. But this sweet-looking girl dreams of winning the gold medal in the Jr. Asia cup rather than winning the Miss India contest.
India will play its first match against Sri Lanka on the 20th July. Amubi has her strategy in place for the opening fixture. Not only for this one, she has plans for all the teams in the competition. According to her, China is the toughest opponent in the Pool-A while Thailand is the fourth team in this pool.
Amubi and her coach, both are pretty satisfied with their preparations as the team practiced against the SAI’s boys and girls team in Lucknow.
“Our strength in attack but simultaneously, we will do our best in the defence as well and will try to give away minimum number of penalty corners to the opponents”, says the young skipper.
The left-half feels Sushila Chanu will be a good play-maker in the mid-field, who will get support from Jamila Bano as well. Then it will be Binita Kindo, a talented forward from Orisa, who will be the girl-in-action in front of the cage.
It may be a little surprising to know that the 14 out of 18 girls are boarding a flight for the first time.
So, will lack of experience affect India’s performance?
The leader doesn’t agree. She is quite impressed with her team, and with the administrators as well, who made sure that there was no issue regarding the passports and visa for the team.
Another issue, which sometimes becomes really major, doesn’t bother her. The food. Now, in Shanghai, you will be lucky if you get the Indian style ‘daal-roti-chawal’ stuff. But this is never a problem with a team which has 6 players from Manipur and 2 from Mizoram. And the rest of them have been mentally prepared to take on the challenge.
So, inspired by the “Chak de” girls, this young and very confident squad is sure of a podium finish. Ameen!
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