Kakamigahara. After the success achieved by the Indian men’s junior team, the Indian women’s team would also like to repeat it with a title win in the Junior Asia Cup hockey tournament starting on Saturday. The Indian junior men’s team beat arch-rivals Pakistan 2-2 in Salalah, Oman. 1 won the Asia Cup title for the fourth time. Now taking inspiration from him, the junior team is also eyeing the first Asia Cup title. India has to play Uzbekistan in the first match on Saturday. The Women’s Junior Asia Cup is also a qualifier for the FIH Junior Women’s World Cup to be held later this year. The top three teams in the Women’s Junior Asia Cup will get direct entry into the FIH Junior Women’s World Cup to be held in Santiago, Chile from November 29 to December 10.
Under Preity’s captaincy, the Indian team is in Pool A along with four-time champions Korea, Malaysia, Uzbekistan and Chinese Taipei. While hosts Japan, China, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Hong Kong and China are in Pool B. India has so far won one silver and one bronze medal in seven seasons of the tournament. Team captain Preeti said, “We have worked hard for this tournament in the last few months and now we are eager to perform well on the field.
Also read: India beat Pakistan to win Junior Asia Cup title
The senior team was also practicing with us, which boosted our morale.” After the round-robin round, the top two teams from both the pools will play the semi-finals. Rest of the teams will play classification matches. After Uzbekistan, India will play Malaysia on June 5, Korea on June 6 and Chinese Taipei on June 8.
