Playing with men will help us: Rani Rampal

Bengaluru, November 20: It was special experience for Rani Rampal, the skipper of the Asia Cup winning Indian women's hockey squad. She took part in the mixed gender five-a-side hockey national tournament for the first time, held at Balewadi Sports Complex in Pune on Saturday.

Rani represented Hockey Haryana which lost to Hockey Karnataka in the semifinal. In the quarterfinal Rani also scored a field goal in her team's 10-3 victory against Jharkhand.

Interestingly, International Olympic Committee (IOC) is keeping an eye on this five-a-side mixed gender hockey since last year and their motive is to introduce the event in the 2024 summer Olympics. The skipper of the Indian women's team revealed saying, "I am truly elated to have participated. Former national players like Hartaj Singh, Sher Singh, were in the team and playing with them was a great experience."

High Performance Director of Indian men's team David John who was present in the tournament, has said, "This kind of mixed gender hockey tournaments will actually raise the standard of Indian women hockey players."

Rani also voiced the same opinion. Rani explained, "The men are much ahead of us in technique, speed, strength and sometimes in skill also. So playing with them always will improve our standard. In this tournament, I had little difficulty in coping up with their speed, shooting strength and off-the-ball movement. But as the tournament progressed I was able to adjust with them also."

The women's national preparatory camp is scheduled to start in Bengaluru from November 25th. The Indian captain had struck the important goal in the final before her the Indian goalie Savita Punia made brilliant saves to guide the Indian women to lift the Asia Cup after a gap of 13 years.

Rani feels before they start participating in crucial important tournaments in the upcoming year, like Commonwealth Games, Asian Games and the Women's World Cup, a few more mixed gender tournaments will help them make solid preparation. "Playing with men in such tournaments will help us," the skipper signed off.