Indian women hockey team to play Belgium junior men's team in preparatory tour of Europe

New Delhi: The 18-member Indian women’s hockey team is set for the preparatory tour of Europe, ahead of the Asia Cup in Japan next month. [caption id=“attachment_4008619” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] The 18-member Indian women’s team to leave for the preparatory tour of Europe. Image courtesy: Twitter @TheHockeyIndia[/caption] The team will play four matches during the tour, the first and third of which will be against Ladies Den Bosch on 8 to 15 September in Netherlands. They will also play against the Belgium junior men’s team on 11 to 18 September in Antwerp. “This is the first time we are playing a junior men’s national team. While we play a lot of practice matches with the junior men’s side during our National Camps, the team is excited to be playing against a side which is the Junior World Cup finalists,” said Rani. Chief Coach Sjoerd Marijne added: “The idea of playing the men’s team was to toughen our team mentally and also the pace of the game will be much faster. “The National Camp was good as we played two matches with the men’s team in Bengaluru every week and the girls have put in a lot of hard work in this camp. Asia Cup is important and in my opinion, at the moment the Indian team is the No.1 side in Asia and there’s no doubt that we will be gunning for the title.”