Railways looks to defend title

Defending champion Railways will look to retain its crown at the senior women’s National hockey championship when it gets underway at the Guru Gobind Singh Sports College here on Saturday.

Railways will start its campaign against Uttarakhand but is not likely to face serious challenge till the knockout stages. A dominant force in domestic hockey, Railways employs almost the entire women’s national squad — both current and past — and has reigned for almost two decades now.

As such, it is likely to dominate this year too.

As many as 29 teams from across the country will be seen in action in the 13-day competition starting Thursday. The league matches will be played till April 26 while the quarterfinals will be played on April 28. The title will be decided on April 30.

The teams have been divided into eight groups, with the table-topper from every group qualifying for the knockout stages.

The teams that can possibly challenge the domination of Railways are Haryana, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, nurseries of Indian women’s hockey, and the Madhya Pradesh Hockey Academy, which mainly includes youngsters but has come up in a really big way in recent years to develop new talent.

The groupings: Pool A: Railways, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu; Pool B: Haryana, Bengal, Rajasthan, Mumbai; Pool C: Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Kerala, Goa; Pool D: Madhya Pradesh Hockey Academy, Bihar, Jammu & Kashmir; Pool E: Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh; Pool F: Chandigarh, Bhopal, Gujarat, Sports Authority of India; Pool G: Odisha, Karnataka, Tripura, Himachal Pradesh; Pool H: Punjab, Delhi, Puducherry, Assam.