New Delhi
\nForward Rani Rampal was Friday named as the captain of India\u2019s 18-member squad for the women\u2019s hockey World Cup to be played in London next month.<\/p>\n
Hockey India today announced the 18-member Indian women\u2019s team for the prestigious tournament which is slated to begin on July 21.<\/p>\n
India have been placed in Pool B alongside hosts and world No. 2 England, world No. 7 USA and world No. 16 Ireland.<\/p>\n
While experienced Rani will lead the team, goalkeeper Savita has been named as her deputy.<\/p>\n
The tournament will also witness the return of goalkeeper Rajani Etimarpu after having rested for the Spain Tour.<\/p>\n
India\u2019s defence will consist of Sunita Lakra, Deep Grace Ekka, Deepika, drag-flicker Gurjit Kaur and youngster Reena Khokhar who makes a comeback into the team.<\/p>\n
In the midfield, Namita Toppo, Lilima Minz, Monika, Neha Goyal, Navjot Kaur and Nikki Pradhan will hold fort.<\/p>\n
Skipper Rani returned to the team during their Spain Tour and will again be leading her team\u2019s forward-line. The ace-striker will be linking up with the experienced Vandana Katariya while Navneet Kaur, Lalremsiami and Udita will also provide them support in attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was not an easy decision to select the 18-member team as all the core probables have worked really hard in the national camp. However, we feel that this 18-member team will be the best mixture to be successful at the Vitality Hockey Women\u2019s World Cup London 2018,\u201d said chief coach Sjoerd Marijne.<\/p>\n
On the team\u2019s balance, the Dutchman said, \u201cWe have a good blend of experience and youth in the team. The recent Spain Tour has given the team great confidence to do well at the World Cup. Our focus is on the first match against England.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn order to reach our first goal of qualifying for the quarterfinals, we can only think about the first match against the hosts and the team is excited and confident of starting well against them,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Delhi Forward Rani Rampal was Friday named as the captain of India\u2019s 18-member squad for the women\u2019s hockey World Cup to be played in London next month. Hockey India today announced the 18-member Indian women\u2019s team for the prestigious tournament which is slated to begin on July 21. India have been placed in Pool […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35615,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35614"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35616,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35614\/revisions\/35616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}