Bhubaneswar: As the competition gets tougher in the ongoing Men’s Hockey World Cup at the Kalinga Stadium here, sports pundits have now started to speculate team India’s prospects of good performance in the upcoming matches.
In an exclusive interview to OTV, former International hockey player from Odisha, Roselin Dung Dung sounded confident of a superb show by team India in the upcoming knock out games of the tournament.
“Netherlands is a strong team and the recent performance shows that the Dutch will defeat Canada in the crossover game to face India in the quarterfinal,” said Roselin.
“We can hope for an exciting match as the playing style of the two teams is different. While Netherlands emphasize on playing long passes and fast hockey, India mostly depend on short passes and play skilful hockey,” Roselin added.
She further said in the earlier matches India had difficulties scoring the goals but the team has improved a lot as there is a good combination.
Roselin opined that team India should also concentrate on converting the penalty corners as it is one of the important aspects of the game.
Netherlands which finished in second place of Group D will play a crossover match against the third placed Canada of Group C today. The winner of the match will play the quarter final match against India on December 13.
Roselin further said, “We hope that India will win the trophy as they have the home support.”
Roselin wished the two Odia players and the whole team good luck and hoped that they will continue their brilliant performance throughout the tournament.
In today's matches, Belgium will take on Pakistan and Netherlands will play against Canada. The winners’ of the crossover matches will book a place in quarterfinals.
Host India, Argentina, Australia and Germany have already reached the quarterfinals after topping their respective pools.