Dec 06: Splendid performance shown by the Indian players throughout the Lal Bahadur Shastri four-nation women’s hockey tournament continued in the final as they ousted Azerbaijan by 1-0 at the Shivaji stadium here on Wednesday.
The outcome of the match remained in the pool of suspense till the very end with Azerbaijan putting everything into the attack in the last 10 minutes. The only goal was scored by star Saba Anjum in the 52 nd minute that definitely put the tourists under pressure and helped to put the title into the host’s bag.
"I am really happy that we have won. In fact, we had come into play with this thought that we have to win, since we are playing on the home turf," said a proud Anjum, who was declared Player of the Match.
But hockey is not played by a single player. It’s a team effort that fetch win for any team. If the ball was not passed to me then how could I have scored the goal? The goal had been scored by the team, said Anjum.
The final was a clash of equals with both the teams giving tough resistance to each other right from the starting of the game.
Azerbaijan had two-three good chances. They could not touch the ball. It was very close to the goal. Same thing happened with us. Even we missed one or two chances, very clear chance,” said Indian coach G S Bhangu.
The hosts could not capitalise the penalty corner in the first half. They met the same fate with the second penalty corner. It was third penalty corner that could be utilised in winning the tournament.
In the last 15 minutes of the match, the opponent team made several desperate moves. But it was the day for India and Azerbaijan’s all effort went into vain as Indian goalkeeper Dipika Murty let down their attempt to equalise the score.
“We have a good chance to qualify. In our pool only USA can give us a tough fight. But we hope to put up a good show,” said Bhangu looking ahead to the Olympic qualifiers in Russia next year.
The Indian skipper Mamta Kharab opines the same, “Our preparations are basically for the Olympic qualifiers. The final match of the four-nation tournament has been excellent for us. We had many youngsters in the team for the event. The combination is much better than what it was earlier.”
“Few of our players have been out of action due to injuries. That gave us chance to test the newcomers in this tournament. But we are hoping good to get them back before the qualifiers,” added Kharab.
Earlier in the day, Italy beat Malaysia 1-0 to finish third in the tournament. The solitary goal was scored by Julieta Obrest in extra time, as both the team could not score in regulation time.
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