FIH Women's Hockey World Cup: India beat Japan 3-1 to sign off from underwhelming campaign

The Indian women's hockey team ended their FIH Women's Hockey World Cup campaign with a consolation 3-1 win over Japan in a 9-12th place classification match on Wednesday.

Navneet Kaur scored a brace (30', 45') while Deep Grace Ekka scored in the 38th minute for India. Yu Asai (20') scored the lone goal for Japan.

The Savita Punia-led team would be happy to have signed off from the World Cup on a winning note. However, the underwhelming campaign had a lot of takeaways for the Indian team.

As the Commonwealth Games 2022 (CWG 2022) approaches, the Indian team's think-tank, led by coach Janneke Schopman, will have to get back to the drawing board to chalk out better strategies.

Indian women's hockey team rue poor finishing

India started the match on the front foot as Neha Goyal and Navneet Kaur set up an early chance. However, lacklustre finishing, as has been the case in the World Cup so far, let the team down again.

Gurjit Kaur then tried to score off a penalty corner but her shot couldn't breach the Japanese goalkeeper.

Navneet Kaur then broke through the Japanese defense and penetrated inside the circle but again poor finishing meant the teams were deadlocked with no goal on the board.

Vandana Katariya soon tested the Japanese goalkeeper but couldn't make a difference to the scoreline.

Japan then took the lead when Asai scored off a penalty corner but 10 minutes later, Navneet Kaur restored parity at 1-1 when she opened the floodgates for India.

While Gurjit Kaur couldn't make use of her dragflicks from penalty corner chances, Deep Grace Ekka converted one, finding the bottom right corner of the goal as India took the lead.

Navneet Kaur got her brace soon after as India extended their lead and good defending made sure the Japanese strikers were at bay for the rest of the match.

While India did finish lower than what they did last time (they finished eighth in the previous edition of the World Cup), the expectations from the Indian team were huge, especially after a semi-final appearance last year.

As the Commonwealth Games approach, the Indian women's team embarks on another podium-finish mission, this time armed with a huge learning exp.