Kakamigahara: The Indian women’s hockey team put up a dominant show in the Women’s Asia Cup as they thrashed China 4-1 in their second Pool A match at the Kakamigahara Kawasaki Stadium on Monday.
Gurjit Kaur (19th minute), Navjot Kaur (32nd), Neha Goyal (49th) and Rani Rampal (58th minute) netted the goals for India as they registered their second successive victory in the tournament after they had decimated Singapore 10-0 in their opening encounter.
India began on a positive note as they won a penalty corner in the 15th minute but the first goal for the Women in Blue came in the second quarter when India’s dragflick specialist Gurjit Kaur scored to hand them the lead. After this, both India and China started to play cautiously as the latter looked to not concede any more goals.
But after a 10-minute break, Navjot Kaur doubled India’s lead through a brilliant on-field goal in the 32nd minute. But their joy was short-lived as they ended up conceding one as a result of a defensive error. Quixia Cui, capitalising on the mistake successfully converted the chance in the 38th minute to reduce China’s deficit.
The Indians now tightened their defence as China looked for an equaliser. In the 49th minute, Neha Goyal extended India’s lead through a clever variation of a penalty corner as she sent the ball past Chinese goalkeeper Jiao Ye.
Both the teams won penalty corners in the last 10 minutes with India winning two and China one. But none of them could convert their chances into a goal. Indian skipper Rani Rampal got her name in the goal-scorer’s list after she netted a splendid field goal to make it 4-1 for India.
India next play their last pool match Malaysia on Tuesday.