India at CWG 2022: Execution the key as women's hockey team looks to leave World Cup disappointment behind

A historic fourth-place finish at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and a creditable third position in their maiden outing in FIH Pro League raised the hopes among the Indian women’s hockey team fans as the World Cup came calling. The campaign of the Savita Punia-led team however left a bitter taste as they finished ninth and failed to reach the quarter-finals. For a high-flying team that had experienced two major highs in the past year, it was a crushing blow. But beyond the spectrum of black and white, the real truth of India’s campaign lies in the shades of gray. The results went against the Janneke Schopman-coached side but they also belied the work done by the players on the turf. The trademark of the current team is their willingness to take the game to the opposition. They have little respect for reputation after the pushback. And it was no different in the World Cup. “You see a small transition happening when we play teams now, that some teams prefer to play more defensively (against us). Some teams are quite happily just defending in their own 25 and that means there are 11 people around the circle," coach Schopman said, in a press conference, on her team’s World Cup campaign. It wasn’t just another statement from an under-pressure coach trying to justify her work or the team’s performance. That claim is strongly backed by the stats. They won only one of the six matches at the mega event, but in all games dominated the proceedings, earning more circle penetrations and penalty corners than their opponents. A marked improvement over the teams of yesteryears. However, the same stats also lay bare India’s shortfall — a heap of chances created, very little converted.

PC conversion a worry The most conclusive stat from the tournament was the fact that India scored just five penalty corner goals despite earning 43 PCs. Quick from the flanks and from centre of the field, India even created a host of open-pay goal opportunities but the forwards were poor with the execution under pressure. “The big problem in the (Women’s) World Cup was conversion, of both field goals and penalty corners. That was a massive disappointment," former men’s hockey team captain Viren Rasquinha said during a media interaction. “It’s not that we didn’t create chances. Every match was close. They have to get sharper in conversions and that’s going to be critical.” There was a combination of things that didn’t work in India’s favour in the PC department. One of the main reasons was the poor return from the stick of ace dragflicker Gurjit Kaur. She scored just one goal from the PCs. Another dragflicker Deep Grace Ekka also had just one goal. The lack of dragflickers in the team became a sticking point for India at the World Cup with Gurjit and Grace being out of form. Even the execution of injection wasn’t optimal, allowing the rushers from opposition teams to get into stronger defensive positions. The goalscoring problems were compounded by the poor form of forwards Navneet Kaur and Sharmila Devi with an exception of Vandana Katariya. “We created a lot of PC chances, which is good. But that is also something that we’re not used to and our execution failed. I think there are many reasons for that. We struggled with the field a little bit, with our injections. It’s a different field than we typically train on and that’s something we had to adjust to and I don’t think we adapted that well,” Schopman said while admitting the goalscoring issues. [caption id=“attachment_10855591” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] All eyes will be on Indian ace dragflicker Gurjit Kaur. Image: Hockey India[/caption] There’s little time though to brood, and Schopman is well aware of that. The team gave a good account of what they are capable of when they defeated Canada in the 9-16th place classification match at the World Cup, 24 hours after losing to Spain in the race for the quarter-finals. If in the group matches, against England, China and New Zealand, India failed to rise to the occasion when it mattered the most, they showed against Canada that they know how to respond when their backs are against the wall. Going forward, they will need to make it a regular feature of their game. With India playing an attacking brand of hockey, teams are more conservative while playing them. There is a lack of space. The execution is of utmost importance. With India doing well over the past year, the weight of expectations is heavier. Their response to it will be the biggest determinant in the results and World Cup has given the team the perfect learning that way. “I think as a team, we have to get used to it mentally, that we have less space to attack. We have to learn that if we have more of the ball, how can we do more with it as well. So overall, I think this tournament has shown us that we’re on the right way. We have to now fine-tune some of our skills in relation to how other teams approach us,” Schopman said. India won the CWG gold in 2002 and were the silver medallist in 2006. Australia, England and New Zealand will pose a tough challenge in Birmingham Games and despite the team not having a good World Cup, their on-field performance showed that the side is capable of going the distance, however, their campaign will be decided on their quality of execution. India begin their campaign on 29 July against Ghana. They will also play Wales on 30 July, England on 2 August and Canada on 3 August in the opening round. Watch the LIVE coverage of Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games on SONY SIX, SONY TEN 1, SONY TEN 2, SONY TEN 4 (English) & SONY TEN 3 (Hindi) channels starting from 28th July 2022 at 11:30 pm IST. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News ,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook ,  Twitter  and  Instagram .