Scotland: With a well balanced team of 16, the Senior Indian Women Hockey Team readies itself to take on the opponent with its full strength. The rigorous training sessions in process for the Commonwealth Games at Glasgow (Scotland) is witnessing the team putting in the best efforts and practicing new modules to give a finishing touch to the preparations.

Speaking on the practice sessions, chief coach Neil Hawgood said, “While the team is young but the kind of play that they showed in the recent Malaysian Tour gives me reason to be proud of them and confidence that we will deliver our best performance here. The girls are focused on their first match against Canada and we are working on the right team combination keeping the opponents in mind. The practice sessions are helping us get acclimatized with the weather and the situation and the feeling of playing as a team. The focus today was passes and penalty corner conversions and it was a positive session as the girls looked all glued to their goal ahead.”

Captain Ritu Rani said, “The training sessions are picking up pace day by day as the tournament is approaching. While the whole team is excited about the matches, all the players are putting in their best during the practice sessions. Chief Coach Neil Hawgood has designed various strategies for the team and we are polishing them efficiently during our training sessions. We are currently working on our penalty corner strategy and we are confident of a winning start to the tournament. The recent success story of the Malaysian Tour has helped in boosting up the confidence of the whole team and we look forward to deliver similar results in the upcoming matches.”

The Indian women hockey team arrived in Scotland on 9 July 2014 and for three days the team had their training sessions at the University of Edinburgh before reaching the Commonwealth Games Village on 13 July 2014.

The Commonwealth Games will see a total of 10 teams divided into two groups. India is placed along with Canada, New Zealand, Trinidad & Tobago and South Africa in group A.

Schedule for Commonwealth Games (Women) –