Oz keen on revenge

Bhubaneswar, Dec 1: With the 3-1 drubbing in the hockey Test series last month at the hands of a resurgent India still afresh in their minds, Australia are keen to avenge their defeat when they meet India in the Champions Trophy.

As both teams have been placed in separate pools, they may clash with each other only in the qualifiers. Australian captain Eddie Ockenden, however, stated Monday that his team would be wary of India. “India is a much improved team and they are playing well. When we played against them last month, they were really good and so they are the team we are looking at closely.”

Eddie believes that India has a ‘strong’ chance of winning the championship as well.  “They (India) are a very experienced team and if they continue playing in the same manner as they performed in the 17th Asian Games and the India tour of Australia, they have a strong chance to win this championship as well,” he said.

Talking about his own team, Eddie said that he confident of doing well in the tournament in the absence of some of the experienced players. “We have been performing really well so far and in-spite of some really experienced players not here with us, but we are comfortable playing with this squad.”

Ever since they arrived here, the Kookaburras appear to be a team on a mission. They have been training very hard under coach Graham Reid, who Monday said that his team’s aim is to retain the title which they have won ion all last five editions of the tournament. “We have won this championship 5 times in a row and the main aim this time would be to keep that going and take the number to six,” he said.