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The Indian women’s hockey team registered a 2-3 loss to Great Britain in the FIH Pro League on Sunday, June 9. The loss extended their losing streak to eight matches and ultimately put an end to their campaign at the tournament. With their loss at the Lee Valley Hockey Stadium in London, India will finish eighth in the FIH Pro League 2023-24 standing with just eight points from 16 games.
They will be followed by United States on ninth with four points, who will be relegated to the FIH Hockey Nations Cup for next season. The game saw Lalremsiami and Navneet Kaur scoring in the 14th and 23rd minute for India whereas Watson Charlotte and Balsdon Grace came up with goals in 3rd, 56th and 58th minutes. Great Britain got an early lead in the game with Howard penetrating into the shooting circle through the right wing passing to Watson.
Two calls went against India which included a video review leaving coach Harendra Singh frustrated. Needless to say, India came up with a much-improved performance; however, their performance wasn’t enough to break the performance of the ultimate winners. After the match, Indian goalkeeper Savita Punia said, “These are not the results that we want. We are upset about today’s result. We came back from a goal down, we needed to be calm in the end.”
She added, “When we came here, we had to play attacking hockey. The four matches in Belgium, we were defensive. We did that in London, but of course, our defence needs to be better. It means a lot to Indian hockey that we keep our place in the Pro League because otherwise, we don’t get enough matches. Not happy with performances, but happy that we remain in the Pro League.”
