New Delhi, The Indian women’s hockey team will tour Australia for a four-match series from May 21 to June 3 as part of its preparations for next month’s Nation’s Cup in New Zealand, which is a pathway to the elite FIH Pro League.
The FIH Hockey Women’s Nations Cup is scheduled to be held from June 15 to 21 in Auckland. India will play all the four matches against Australia at the Perth Hockey Stadium. India needs to win the tournament to regain entry in the Pro League after being relegated last year.
The first two matches will be played on May 26 and 27, while the remaining two games are scheduled for May 29 and 30.
After the tour of Australia, the team will travel to New Zealand where it will continue its preparations ahead of the Nations Cup.
The Indian women’s team heads into the tour after an encouraging outing in Argentina earlier this year, where it showed immense grit to finish a four-match tour with two wins.
Since returning from the tour, the squad has been training intensively at the national camp in SAI Bengaluru, focusing on improving key areas ahead of a packed international calendar.
With support from Anandana, the Coca-Cola India Foundation, the drag-flickers in the team will also undergo a specialised drag-flick training clinic under Dutch legend Taeke Taekema from May 26 till June 21 in Perth as well as Auckland.
“Very happy that this tour has been made possible by Hockey India because these matches will help us identify our shortcomings and also our improvements after our camps.
“We have seen what the benchmark is when we played Argentina, we can now test how close we are to reach the level of our last two wins and maintain the momentum,” Indian women’s team chief coach Sjoerd Marijne said.
“Instead of making a long flight we cut the travel in pieces so the acclimatisation will go faster. The weather is colder in New Zealand and Australian conditions will be closer to that,” he added.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
