When the Indian women’s hockey team registered good results in tournaments over the last few years, Navneet Kaur invariably would be the heartbeat of the team’s attacking plays. As the Rani Rampal era slowly wound down after the Tokyo Olympics, Navneet – who also hails from Shahbad’s famous hockey nursery like the former captain – emerged as one of India’s most valuable attacking outlets.
Now the vice-captain and one of the senior members of the Indian women’s hockey team in a new Olympic cycle, Navneet has to shoulder much more of the attacking burden on the pitch. On Sunday in Rajgir at the Asian Champions Trophy, she stepped up to do just that in the third quarter when India were being thwarted by a resolute Japanese defence. With the match tied at 0-0, Navneet produced a fabulous finish for the breakthrough goal, before Deepika added two more in the fourth quarter.
India’s 3-0 win ensured that the hosts and defending champions finished first in the pool stage and will face Japan again in the semifinals on Tuesday.
Deepika – leading the goalscoring chart with 10 strikes – seems to have hit the stride in this tournament now, and scored two more well-taken drag flick goals. India’s final penalty conversion on the night was 2 out of 9, but to contextualise that, Japanese goalkeeper Yu Kudo was in inspired form, saving from PC situations when India seemed certain to open the scoring.
Navneet steps up
It was a night with the stakes not really high for either side. India just had to avoid defeat to ensure they finished first. Japan’s qualification to the semifinals was already confirmed before the match with Korea losing against China. The realistic ambition for Japan would have been to fight for a draw perhaps and sneak into third position and avoid a semifinal against India. But China isn’t exactly an easier opposition anyway. So given all this context, the start of the match was understandably cagey.
India, especially after a highly intense match against China 24 hours earlier, didn’t hit their top gear in the first half. Japan didn’t offer much in terms of attacking threat – they didn’t have a circle entry until midway through the second quarter. Adding to India’s frustrations was Kudo’s brilliance in the first two quarters. At one point, she made a triple save from one Penalty Corner routine for India with Navneet, Sushila Chanu (who was starting to celebrate with the ball nearly sneaking through) and Sangita Kumari all thwarted in the space of 10 seconds.
But once again in this tournament, India hit a better tempo right out of the half-time break. The passes got quicker, the attacks grew more direct and at the center of it often was Navneet. Moments before breaking the deadlock, she offered a reminder of why her childhood coach in Shahbad, Baldev Singh, regards her as one of the best in the business when it comes to dribbling and dodging defenders. She drove through the heart of Japan’s defence to draw a foul. And when Lalremsiami took the free hit, she passed the ball behind to Navneet, who made a semi-circular run into the circle and unleashed a powerful tomahawk – the backhand strike whistled past the previously impenetrable Japanese defence with Kudo finally beaten.
Navneet’s tournament, until tonight, was something of a mixed bag. There is never a shortage of creative passing and dribbling when she is on the turf, but she wasn’t always able to find the right connections. Sometimes she mishit shots on goal, sometimes her efforts were blocked off, and her low hits from PCs weren’t working out. But she found a good balance between chance-creation and chance-conversion against Japan, scoring the most crucial goal on the night that all but ended Japan’s resistance. Fittingly, she was named player of the match.
It was after the ACT match against Japan last year in Ranchi – where Navneet had scored the opener again – when former coach Janneke Schopman appreciated how she was a feeder for the strikers ahead of her but added that sometimes she’s so good at dribbling and stick-control that she has the tendency to hold on the ball too long. Under Harendra, Navneet seems to have the freedom to be a roaming attacker higher up the pitch and it could – in due course of time – help her score more too, rather than just being a feeder.
