Template to get back in top gear

Coach Harendra’s focus will be to improve counter control, player marking and increase quality shots on goal

- Sandip Sikdar

Harendra Singh is not satisfied, not with a silver medal at the Asia Cup. “We had prepared for gold for six weeks, The score line doesn’t show that but if we go into deep postmortem, we were very much there,” the Indian women’s hockey team chief coach told HT.

Harendra isn’t wrong. From Pro League relegation, the Salima Tete-led team emerged as the second-best side at the recently concluded Asia Cup, giving eventual winners China a tough fight, both in the Super 4s and the final. But the Alyson Annan-coached team is a different beast altogether currently.

Ranked No.4 in the world, China are the reigning Asian Games champions and Olympic silver medallists, almost beating world No.1 Netherlands in the Paris Games final last year. At the Asia Cup in Hangzhou, they hammered an incredible 42 goals and conceded just two in seven games. India was the only side that managed to score, and also lead, against China.

But in both the matches against China, India competed hard for the first three quarters but ran out of steam in the final quarter, conceding two goals each in both games to lose 1-4 and make the match look like a one-sided affair.