Indian women's teamhad already created history when they reached the quarterfinals of the fieldhockey event at the Tokyo Olympics and became the first-ever Indian team toachieve this feat. However, it looked like Rani and co. weren't reallysatisfied with just a quarterfinal appearance and were ready to go one stepahead to reach the semifinals.
The team scripted history by qualifying for the Olympic Games semifinals forthe first time, beating three-time champions Australia by a solitary goal.Coming into the match, the odds were against India as world no. 2 Australia, amighty unbeaten opponent, awaited them in the last eight rounds. India put up astrong performance to eke out the narrow win over the Hockeyroos. Drag-flickerGurjit Kaur rose to the occasion when it mattered and converted India's lonepenalty corner in the 22nd minute to surprise the Australians.
Goalkeeper SavitaPunia, meanwhile, managed to save all the nine shots directed at her, earningthe well-deserved epithet of "The Wall" on Twitter.
"The only thingwe thought about was that we have to put in our all, we have 60 minutes withus, and hence, it is imperative we give our 100% efforts.”
"We played as ateam and helped each other, retackled even if the goal got messed up and kept acalm defence. And we’re extremely happy that our strategy worked in our favourand we won the quarterfinals.”
"The coach toldus that it was a “Do or Die” situation, we only have 60 minutes and this iseither our first match or the last," Savita Punia said.
Coach Azad SinghMalik, who has seen Savita’s rise through the Haryana junior teams, shared,“Her biggest strength has been her patience and she does not get puzzled by theattacks. She has a clear mind and keeps seeking defenders’ inputs too about theopposition forward line or penalty corner moves.”