Following their disastrous showing in the shoot-outs on Saturday, the Indian women’s hockey team bounced back in style to beat Germany via another shoot-out in their FIH Pro League encounter at Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar on Sunday.
After the match ended 1-1 in regulation time, the Indian players – Sangita Kumari, Salima Tete and Sonika – were all on target during the shoot-out as India won the game 3-0. Skipper and goalkeeper Savita was once again brilliant as she denied all the three German players from scoring.
Not only during the shoot-out, Savita put on quite a performance even towards the end of regulation time to deny Germany from scoring after they won two consecutive penalty corners in the dying minutes of the game.
Despite the win, India coach Janneke Schopman won’t be too happy with the way India failed to convert their chances. They failed to score from all their three PCs and sounded the board only once even though they had 21 circle entries.
Their worst miss came with three minutes remaining in the match with the score tied at 1-1. Deepika made a brilliant run down the left baseline past the German defenders and played it past the goalkeeper to Sharmila Devi in front of the goal. However, Sharmila failed to get any touch to it and the ball rolled in front of the goal.
Irrespective of the shortcomings, India should be pleased with the way they took world No. 5 Germany the distance in both the matches. They will now have a three-week break before they face off against England in another double header at the same venue next month.
Earlier, it was India who dominated the game from the very word go and made several inroads into the German half. But all that meant nothing as they couldn’t find the net.
To make it worse for the hosts, it was Germany who took the lead in the 29th minute following their first PC of the match. Although they missed a penalty stroke earlier, they made no mistake in converting the PC. Carlotta Sippel slapped the ball hard towards the right and Felicia Wiedermann did a great job to deflect the ball into the net past the India goalkeeper Bichu Devi Kharibam, who had replaced Savita in the second quarter.
The third quarter saw India come out all guns blazing in search of an equalizer. They were able to make penetrations but couldn’t score past Germany’s defence. But India pushed on and were finally able to make the breakthrough 10 minutes into the third quarter as Nisha took advantage of sloppy defending by Germany to push the ball into the net.
Both teams had numerous chances after that, but like their last match, it once again had to be decided via a shoot-out and this time it was India who came out as the eventual winners.
