Courtesy: Hockey India/X
On Sunday, November 17, India defeated Japan 3-0 in their fifth and final match of the Women’s Asian Champions Trophy 2024 group stage at the Rajgir Hockey Stadium in the Indian state of Bihar. With this convincing win, the Indian women’s hockey team finished the group stage with five wins in five matches, to book themselves a place in the semi-final of the tournament against the same opponent in Japan.
The first half of hockey saw India dominating the proceedings with a constant wave of attacks, but they were unable to breach the astute Japanese defence. In the 37th minute, India were finally able to break the deadlock with a fantastic goal from Navneet Kaur via a superb backhand shot after she received a pass from Lalremsiami and cut to her left.
At the start of the fourth quarter, Deepika put a couple of sensational drag flicks into the back of the net past the Japanese goal-keeper, in back-to-back minutes, to make the scoreline 3-0 in favour of India. After that, Japan did muster up a few circle penetrations, but the Indian defence were more than strong to thwart them off, to keep a clean sheet once again in the Women’s Asian Champions Trophy 2024.
With their fifth win in a row in the tournament, India finished group stage in first place with 15 points, scoring 26 goals and conceding just two, to book a semi-final with Japan, who finished in fourth place. In the other semi-final, China will be taking on Malaysia after these two teams ended the group stage in second and third place respectively.
