Savita & Co. look for fresh start in Pro League at home

IT has been a long three weeks for the Indian women’s hockey team since their loss in the bronze medal fixture of the Olympic Qualifiers in Ranchi.

- KALYANI MANGALE

All said and done, the Savita Punialed team, hurting from missing out on the Paris 2024 berth, needed to dust themselves off and get ready for the e FIH Pro League, starting at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar.

“As a team we are hurting still, it has been a tough two weeks,” chief coach Janneke Schopman told media ahead of the first fixture against China on Friday. “We have done a lot of talking and thinking about what happened and why it happened. We want to show that we are a good team and we can play against good teams as well. We won’t get the Olympics back but we can only move forward and that is our plan here, to move forward, to play to our strengths, and to show that we can play well,” she added.