Bengaluru, July 20: The mood in the Indian team is upbeat as they are set to take on hosts England in the opening match of the Vitality Women's Hockey World Cup in London on Saturday (July 21).

In the 16-team event, which will run till August 5, India are grouped in Pool B along with world world No.7 USA and world No.16 Ireland.

India take on Ireland on July 26 and three days later they face off with USA to complete their group engagements.

Ahead of the opener against Olympic champions England, Indian skipper Rani Rampal exuded confidence.

"The pressure will be on England and not on us," said Rani .

"Yes they will have the home ground advantage but we aren't new to playing in front of big crowds. We've done well against England before and we'll carry the confidence of doing well in our recent tournaments including the Commonwealth Games where we had tasted victory against England in the group stage.

"We'll go into the match with the belief that we can beat them. We just need to make sure we don't make silly mistakes like we did in the bronze medal match at Gold Coast which cost us the game," added Rani.

India's previous appearance at the FIH World Cup was in 2010 when the event was held in Argentina.

Rani was the key player then in India's ninth-place finish where she scored seven goals.

Now leading the side eight years later, Rani has a team that has shown confidence-inspiring performance over the past two years where the country even climbed to a career-best No.10 in FIH world rankings.

"The team, especially the forward-line does not depend on Rani alone anymore to score goals. We've young strikers including the experience of Vandana Katariya with 200 plus international caps who have scored on multiple occasions for the team. I like to look at the positives. We've and having a drag-flicker like Gurjit Kaur who is one of the best in the world that's another advantage we have," said chief coach Sjoerd Marijne.

Indian Eves’ midfielder, Navjot Kaur believes ranking of a team does not matter as long as they put up a good show against every team at the Vitality Hockey Women’s World Cup London 2018 beginning on 21st July. #IndiaKaGame #HWC2018 pic.twitter.com/QEjfMqdr1A

— Hockey India (@TheHockeyIndia) July 19, 2018

After having arrived in London early, the team has had good training sessions at Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis Stadiums including two practice matches against Australia and Belgium.

"We have had good match practice against two of the top teams in the world. The team is upbeat and excited ahead of the first match and right now, our only focus is to do well against England. We've played USA and Ireland too in the past and have specific game plan against them. But for now, our focus is on the first match," added Rani.

(Source: Hockey India)

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The match will start at 6.30pm IST

Live on Star Sports 2/HD 2 & DD Sports