Having a settled group great boost for us: Savita

Bengaluru, Sep 14 (IANS) Savita, vice-captain and goalkeeper of the Indian women's hockey team, believes they have a well-settled team which would help them in excelling against the USA in their FIH Hockey Olympic Qualifiers scheduled to be held in November 2019 in Bhubaneswar.

"Most of the players selected for our upcoming tour of England have played together as a unit for a long time now. We have a well-settled unit as we understand each other's game pretty well which will further help us against USA at the Olympic qualifiers," Savita said as per a Hockey India release.

"It has been our aim to qualify once again for the Tokyo Olympics 2020 after having qualified for the 2016 edition after a gap of 36 years. We are all very determined about succeeding in the FIH Hockey Olympic Qualifiers Odisha and the upcoming matches against Great Britain will be good preparation for that" she added.

The Indian eves are scheduled to play five matches against a strong Great Britain team in Marlow, England from September 27 to October 4 and the ace goalkeeper believes that they will get to face a side similar to that of the USA.

"Great Britain and USA have quite similar playing styles, and all of us are really pleased that we will be playing against Great Britain before the two huge matches in November," stated the goalkeeper from Haryana.

"The girls have been sweating it out in training for the past two weeks, and I am really confident that we will be able to execute our plans well. We have some really experienced players in our squad and the ones who have recently come in are full of talent and potential, so I am really looking forward to a great couple of months for us."