Indian U-18 women hockey team is playing in Shanghai in the Junior Asia Cup and the coach is confident of putting up a good show.

By Sunil Taneja

Not many people would know that Indian U-18 women hockey team is playing in Shanghai in the Junior Asia Cup.

There is nothing new and probably the players and the coaches have accepted the bitter truth and they just want to do their best without hoping much from the supporters.

Exactly same is the case with Y.S. Chauhan, coach of the said team, who is supremely confident about putting up a good show in the tournament. Chauhan says that the girls have worked really hard in the preparation camp which was held at Lucknow in two phases. He himself has analysed the old-match tapes of South Korea, China and Japan and he is confident this would surely help him in making the strategy against three potential threats for his team in the tournament.

An advocate of attacking hockey, Chauhan is mainly focused on the penalty corner conversions during the month-long conditioning camp. He entirely believes in the "attack is the best defence" theory and says he would like to put other teams on the back-foot.

When asked about playing away from the country and lack of support in Shanghai, Chauhan doesn't worry too much. According to him, all the players are habitual of playing away from their own respective states and hence they are conditioned to the "lack of home support".

He feels, in today's competitive era, one has to overcome such issues to achieve success though it is always nice to hear the slogans like "India jeetega" from supporters.