Hockey India announce 20-member Indian Junior Women’s team to feature at the FIH Women’s Junior World Cup

Hockey Indian recently named the 20-member lineup for the Indian Junior Women’s Hockey Team who will be featuring in the FIH Women’s Junior World Cup 2021. The tournament got postponed to 2022 due to the omicron threat in South Africa last year.

The tournament is scheduled to begin on April 1, 2022, in Potchefstroom, South Africa. The Indian Junior Women’s team are clubbed in Pool D along with top teams like Germany, Wales and Malaysia. The Women in Blue will be led by the talented Salima Tete while Shikha Chaudhury will be her deputy as vice captain.

They will kick-start their campaign on 2nd April as they will go up against Wales Junior team followed by the big clash against Germany Junior team on 3rd April and lastly they will go up against their Asian counterparts Malaysia Junior team on 5th April to complete the group stage clashes. The knockouts are scheduled for 8th April followed by Semifinals on 10th April and lastly the final are on 12th of April.

The 20-member Indian Junior Women’s team includes two goalkeepers but mostly all eyes will be on Bichu Devi Kharibam, who recently made her Senior India debut at the FIH Hockey Pro League matches against Germany. The other goalkeeper Khushboo will also wait for her opportunity. In defence, there will be interest in Akshata Abaso Dekhale who made her senior Indian team debut recently in the FOH Hockey Pro League against Germany. Apart from Dekhale there are defenders such as Marina Lalramnghaki, Preeti, Priyanka and vice captain Ishika Chaudhury.

Reet, Ajmina Kujur, Baljeet Kaur and Vaishnavi Vitthal Phalke will be manning the midfield for the Indian Junior Women’s team. But they will be spearheaded by their captain Salima Tete. The young midfielder will be well supported by Lalremsiami and Sharmila Devi who are all India senior team regulars and were part of the Tokyo Olympics last year.

The forwardline will feature Lalrindiki, Jiwan Kishori Toppo, Mumtaz Khan, Beauty Dungdung, Deepika but people will have a lot of hope from Sangita Kumari who recently made her senior team debut.

Speaking about the team, Chief Coach Janneke Schopman said, “After a long wait our Junior players are definitely ready to start their Junior World Cup experience. It was difficult to finalize the selection as all players showed a lot of progress in the past months which is great to see.”

“With a couple of players making their debut for the Senior Team in the Pro League recently, I believe that the added experience will have a positive influence. The team overall has a nice mixture of different skills and talents and am excited to see them taking on the best teams in the world at U21 level,” Schopman concluded.