BENGALURU: The first significant piece of news came even before the Indian women's team had passed a ball in anger against South Africa on Tuesday. China had beaten England 4-2 in Pool D's first match of the day. It meant that as long as they bested South Africa in the early evening game at the Wagener Stadium on Tuesday, they could potentially hold better cards against England in a direct battle for the right to advance to the next phase of the competition.
When the match began in cool conditions at Amstelveen, the task, then, was fairly clear. Collect three points against their opponents and the pressure would be on England to force a win to qualify on Thursday. That's exactly what they did with an emphatic 6-1 win. There were six different goal-scorers and, truth be said, the margin of victory could have been greater.
South Africa couldn't live with India for vast swathes of the encounter as the latter cut through them repeatedly. Their passing was crisp and purposeful, they were quicker to the second balls and they played through or around the opponent's press. What will please the team management is that for a team supposedly reliant on their set-pieces, they created a number of overlords and opportunities from open play (four of the six goals were field goals).
The side's younger players buzzed around with energy even before Sunelita Toppo, only 19, found the board from close range in the 11th minute. From that moment on, it was a procession as players took it in turns to drive towards the South African goal. The in-form Navneet Kaur doubled the advantage before Sushila Chanu made sure of the points even before half-time. There were three further goals in the second half to round out one of their best hours of hockey in recent times.
Permutations for Thursday's match between India and England
India win: India go through
Draw: India go through
England win: England go through
Result: India 6 (Sunelita Toppo, Navneet Kaur, Sushila Chanu, Deepika, Lalremsiami, Sakshi) bt South Africa 1 (Kayla de Waal)
