Kakamigahara (Japan): After winning the Asian Cup hockey title and qualifying for next year’s World Cup, India skipper Rani on Sunday praised the young players and said they have shown great spirit on such a big stage.
India created history as they edged past China via shootouts. It was the skipper who scored the winning goal for India while Savita made a great save in sudden death to ensure India the 5-4 score in the penalty shootout.
“We had a lot of young players in the team who showed great spirit in playing on such a big platform,” Rani said.
“Happy to qualify for next year’s World Cup on merit. We are all extremely happy that we won the Asia Cup and have earned the qualification for next year’s World Cup on merit, ” she added.
Rani also said that the team was not happy with their performance in Johannesburg at the World League Semi Final. So, in order to gain confidence, they worked very hard.
“We were not happy with our performance in Johannesburg at the World League Semi Final and right then the team had decided that we need to start winning in order to gain that confidence to perform well in top tournaments,” she said.
“We worked a lot on creating PCs and Gurjit worked hard on converting PCs during our camps. We were also well prepared for a shootout situation as we were anticipating the knockouts to end in shootout. All the preparation helped us today,” she added.
