India look to polish grey areas on Australia tour ahead of Jr Women's Hockey WC

Canberra, Sep 25 (PTI) The Indian junior women's hockey team will look to fine-tune the grey areas ahead of the upcoming FIH Hockey Women's Junior World Cup when it kick starts its five-match tour of Australia starting here on Friday.

Indian will play five matches at the National Hockey Centre in Canberra from September 26 till October 2.

The squad will play the first three fixtures against the Australia junior women's team on September 26, 27, and 29 followed by two matches against Canberra Chill, a club which plays in Australia's Hockey One League, on September 30 and October 2.

The Indians will be led by Jyoti Singh with Tushar Khandker as their coach. The tour is crucial as the side gears up for the Junior World Cup in Santiago, Chile in December.

The Indians went on a similar tour to Europe in June, where they faced Belgium, Australia, and Netherlands over five matches.

India defeated Belgium three games in a row, followed by a win against Australia and a shootout loss against the Netherlands.

"After our last tour, we have worked on some areas in terms of structural play and individual technical skills. We have reflected on those matches over the past three months and have done a good job in improving as a group," coach Khandker said.

"I hope that in the upcoming five games we'll be able to show what we have learned and worked on.

"We've been training in the camp in Bangalore and it has been really good. Our preparations for the World Cup are on track and we are here in Australia to play some competitive games. The goal of this tour is to identify which are the areas we need to work on and test ourselves before the World Cup," he added. PTI SSC AM SSC AM AM