Small city of Raipur will come abuzz with activities involving sticks and balls when the Hockey World league Final begins today. The capital of Chhattisgarh which previously boasted of the Raipur International Cricket Stadium will be adding Sardar Vallabhai Patel International Hockey Stadium to its list of world class sporting venues.
The second edition of the competition which is held every two years, is pivotal in ascertaining teams which will qualify alongside continental champions and hosts for Olympics and World Cups. However that won’t be necessary in this case because all 8 teams have qualified for Rio and this competition will provide a perfect avenue for a final assessment of their opponents.
The winner of the tournament also gets a spot for the 2016 Champions Trophy besides the ranking points and the glittering trophy that was unveiled on Thursday.
Hosts India who finished fourth in the semi-finals of the competition in Antwerp, Belgium will have no space to slip up in a strong Pool B alongside Argentina (ranked 5th), Germany (ranked 3rd) and Netherlands (ranked 2nd). In the other pool are Australia, Belgium, Canada and Great Britain.
However, India can take heart from their positive showing in New Zealand where Sardar Singh led side won two games, lost one and drew one. Back home, the side got a feel of the local surroundings and temperature with a tightly contested three-match Test series against Australia. India conceded a late goal in the first game to draw 2-2, Australia scored two goals in two minutes to win the second Test 2-1 and finally India won the third Test 3-2 but lost in deciding penalty shootout.
“We are taking one match at a time. The India - Australia series is over and now it’s the past. We have moved on from there and now all our efforts are focused on giving a good performance at the Hero Hockey World league. The good news is that all our players are fit and there is no injury in the team, which just gives us a lot of confidence ahead of our first encounter,” said High Performance Director and Chief Coach Roelant Oltmans on Wednesday.
In the opener, India face Argentina with little separating the two sides. If rankings are an indication, Argentina are just one place above India but will face a daunting prospect of a sold out stadium with a capacity of 3400.
In the other game of the day, Germany face Netherlands in what is expected to be a exciting game.
Need to grow as a unit
“Our target is to play the best hockey here. We have improved as a team but we need to grow more as a unit. So our target will be to improve ourselves going into Rio,” Sardar said on Thursday.
“It will be a tough competition. There will be tough challenge for every side because world’s best teams will be fighting it out at the pitch. The good thing is that you will get such tough matches in Olympics,” he said.
Aussie skipper Mark Knowles agreed. “It is going to be a very good show here because top eight teams of the world will be playing here. It is an important tournament for us because we don’t get to play big nations quite often,” Knowles said.
Germany skipper Moritz Furste too knows the significance of the HWl Final but said Rio is not on their minds at the moment.
Eves lose 1-4 to Argentina
Buenos Aires: The Indian women’s hockey team suffered a 1-4 loss against hosts Argentina. Martina Cavallero hit the first goal early in the game. Argentina continued to dominate the match as Pilar Romang scored the second goal in the second quarter. In the next 20 minutes, Noel Barrionuevo hit the third goal. The third quarter of the game saw India opening their account through Vandana Katarya before Barrionuevo struck another in the last quarter to seal the match for her team.