Some numbers you would like to look into before getting ready to witness Indian women taking on The States in the last phase of Olympic Qualifying sequence.
Indian women team played in seven international events this year, FIVE Test series (3 against higher ranked teams) and the rest FIH tournaments
Rani Rampal captained all except one when goalie Savita Punia was chosen while she was rested.
Indian girls won Ireland 1-0 (WR:8), South Korea 2-1 (WR: 11) & Malaysia 4-1 (WR:20), drew series against Spain 1-1 (WR:7) while losing to reigning Olympic champions Great Britain 0-1 (WR:5).
They played two tournaments, FIH Women’s Series Final and Olympic Test Event, both in Japan.
India won 7 of 8 mathes in these two events.
India tried 25 girls this year in the run up to Bhubaneswar. Sonika was played just in one tour before dropped early in the year. Simiarly, Rashta Minz too got only one tour this year.
Namita Toppo, who played just a singular event this got selected, as the stalwart was injured for larger part of the year.
Only two players who figured in Malaysia TS, SK TS and FIH women’s series were dropped: Sunita Lakra and Jyoti. For them its so close yet so far fate. Of them, Sunita is most capped and experienced.
Interestingly, 10 players figured in all seven international outings this year while it was just for five in Men’s. Women’s team this way can be said to be well settled and consistent.
Over all, girls played 26 matches, winning 16.
They lost four matches while six were drawn.
India struck as many as 68 goals, 27 of them coming in the FIH Women’s Series.
Penalty corner executioner in the team Surjit Kaur tops the scorer’s roll of hour with 19 goals followed by Lalremsiami (10) and Navneet Kaur (9) while Vandana Katariya and captain Rani Rampal shared 12 goals equally.