Indian Women’s Hockey Team To Tour For Hangzhou Asian Games

The Indian Women’s Hockey team is going to visit Australia as part of their Preparation for upcoming Hangzhou Asian Games. The team will play 5 matches there.

The Indian women’s hockey team will go to Australia for a five-game series, starting on May 18 and ending on May 27. 

India will play Australia in the opening three games of the series before facing Australia A in the next two games. The MATE Stadium in Adelaide will serve as the venue for all of the games.

The tour will begin on May 18 with India’s first game, followed by back-to-back contests on May 20 and 21. On May 25 and 27, the visitors will then go off against Australia A. 

The Indian women’s hockey team is now rated eighth, whereas the Australian women’s hockey team is ranked third worldwide.

This year’s Asian Games in Hangzhou, which is scheduled to take place in September and October, will use the tour as a warm-up event.

The head coach of the Indian women’s hockey team, Janneke Schopman, stated the following in regards to the same: 

“Playing Australia in Australia would help us gauge where we are relative to the top of women’s hockey. 

Furthermore, the series will be essential to our training for the Asian Games in China because it will provide us with the right exposure and enable us to identify the areas where we require to make changes and improvements. Therefore, it’s a crucial tour for us tactically.”

India will arrive in Australia full of confidence after upsetting host Spain in the FIH Women’s Nations Cup Final in December 2022. 

Additionally, in January 2023, India went on a tour of South Africa. There, they played the hosts in four matches and won each one handily (5-1, 7-0, and 4-0), with the fourth game ending in a 2-2 draw. 

The Indian team, on the other hand, lost 1-3 to the Netherlands in their final three games of the same tour.

Additionally, in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics Semi-Final, the Indian women’s hockey team overcame three-time Olympic gold medalists Australia 1-0. India’s triumph was historic because they were competing in their third Olympics and had just made it to the quarterfinals, whereas Australia had won three gold medals.

India also battled strongly against Australia in the Commonwealth Games 2022 Semi-Final match in Birmingham, drawing the score at 1-1 at the end of regulation time. But Australia prevailed 3-0 in the penalty shootout to advance to the championship game.

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The Indian women’s hockey team is now preparing for the Australia Tour by working hard to further hone their tactics and lineups at the Senior Women’s National Coaching Camp taking place at SAI, Bengaluru.