India’s Senior Women Hockey Championship: Opening day proves lucky for Railways
Railways defeated the host team, Haryana 7-1 on the opening day of the Hockey India (HI) Senior Women National Hockey Championship held at the Motilal Nehru Sports School at Rai on the January 31, 2011.
The implicit star-sparkling Indian team gave a 7-1 defeat to the Haryana Squad at the time-out. The beaten team was left confused and defeated in the field. This failure was said to be associated with the absence of an international player, Mamta Kharab
due to an injury, leaving the team weak and helpless. In her unavailability, the responsibility was shifted over to the Indian Skipper Surinder Kaur.
Railways were in proven form, self-motivated and confident in the field when the team captain Saba Anjum slotted a penalty corner in the second minute of the match. Later, Rana (a striker) hit a goal past the goal-keeper, Savita after ten minutes, which
was set up by the other forward Chanchan Devi.
The team seemed to be in the spot light when they managed to hit two more goals within a two minute gap. First, the mid-fielder Asunta Lakra struck a quick shot in the 14th minute that was followed by Deepika Thakur, who ran past the Haryana defenders
Jaswinder and Jaspreet Kaur in the 15th minute, hitting a goal.
Jasjeet Kaur Handa of the Railways slotted the fifth goal of the guest team in the 27th minute as they continued to dominate in the first half.
Haryana hardly shot a goal just two minutes before the break. It was a soft penalty corner hit by the full back Sandeep Kaur, which rolled across the Railway goal-keeper, Deepika Murty.
However, the second half went a head-to-head between both the teams. Haryana managed to avoid the mistakes of providing space to the railway forwards Jasjeet, Saba, Rani and Chanchan to score a goal.
Yet, Railways proved the host team wrong when Rani struck a goal from a pass by the other striker Kirandeep Kaur in the 53rd minute.
Last but not the least was the defender Joydeep Kaur’s goal, as a result of a penalty corner, rounding off the score at an obvious 7-1 in the 66th minute of the match.
Early, a match between Orissa and Punjab had taken place in which Elin Lakra’s hat-trick made Orissa defeat the Punjab at 5-3, winning a bronze medal.
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