Rani to lead Indian hockey eves in Europe Tour

Rani will lead the 18-member Indian women's hockey team while Savita will serve as her deputy in the 15-day Europe Tour, beginning 5 September in the Netherlands.

In their previous outing at the Women's Hockey World League Semi Final, the team lost to England in the quarter-final and eventually ended the competition in eighth place.

The team began the year on a positive note with a five-match series win against Belarus followed by a podium finish at the World League Round 2 in Canada. However, it is consistent performance that the women's team seeks as they had lost a five-match series to higher ranked New Zealand ahead of the Women's World League Semi Final in Johannesburg.

"I wouldn't say we dropped our performance after starting the year on a winning note. Our exposure against New Zealand was good despite the losses and we will be working on the mistakes we made in Johannesburg during the on-going camp in Bengaluru. We need to be more consistent and the team is positively working towards achieving better results," expressed captain Rani.

Meanwhile, coach Sjoerd Marijne stated that the Holland experience will throw open a bigger pool of players to choose from for the all-important 2017 Women's Asia Cup in Japan.

"We will be experimenting new combinations in Holland and try out different variations in PC conversions and goal scoring. Mental training is another aspect we are focused on at the moment in our ongoing camp apart from improving speed and core fitness," stated the 43-year-old Dutch Coach.

The squad is as follows:

Savita (Vice Captain), Rajani Etimarpu, Deep Grace Ekka, Gurjit Kaur, Navdeep Kaur, Sunita Lakra, Rashmita Minz , Namita Toppo, Nikki Pradhan, Monika, Karishma Yadav, Lilima Minz, Neha Goyal, Rani (Captain), Poonam Rani, Vandana Katariya, Reena Khokhar, Lalremsiami. 

-ANI