Asian Champions Trophy: Navneet Kaur finds the space, Deepika finds her footing as India down Japan in an entertaining ‘arm-wrestle’
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At half-time, Japan’s coach Jude Menezes – an Indian Olympian – called the group-stage match against the hosts an arm-wrestle duel. It was an entertaining encounter between teams with perfect records at the Asian Champions Trophy here. In the end, India just about managed to muscle their way past to make it four wins out of four.
Navneet Kaur (31′) put India ahead and then Kana Urata (37′) brought Japan back into the match with a ferocious drag flick. With both sides pushing hard, the winner eventually came from Sangita Kumari (47′) after Deepika won and took a series of Penalty Corners to eventually bring the arm down in India’s favour.
Somewhere in the third quarter, when there was a bit of a lull in the atmosphere, there was a loud yell of “Deepika” from India coach Janneke Sch...