The history of world sports is littered with such examples. Indian hockey icon and former captain Rani is the latest player to find themselves in this situation. An extraordinary achievement, still outside the national team, but not afraid of another comeback.
Since the historic Olympic highlight of the Indian women’s ice hockey team finishing fourth in Tokyo, Rani has outdone the top 18 or 20 players in the core group competing in international competition. I noticed that interestingly, it coincided with the baton change of head of her coach. Sjoerd Marijne resigned after his 2021 Tokyo Olympics and his assistant Janneke Schopman was promoted to take charge.
Since then, the two best competitions India has traveled to are the World Cup in Spain and Holland and the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. At the World Cup, India failed to qualify for the quarterfinals after failing to win a single match in their group. In the end, they finished ninth. In Birmingham, the Indian woman returned to her CWG podium with a bronze medal. Lani was ignored in both appearances and goalkeeper Savita wore the captain’s armband.
Rani aggravated a hamstring injury during the Olympics and was out until March of this year. But before her World Cup, she reportedly recovered due to her personal efforts, including recovery at a private facility in Bangalore. She was interestingly selected for the European Tour ahead of the World Cup this July but was benched for the first four matches. She was eventually given 12 minutes to play in the match against Belgium, presumably as part of stress management for a player returning from injury.
Anyone who saw this 12 minutes of her, believes the 27-year-old Lani showed no signs of injury or ill health. By the way, it was Lani’s 250th match. Shopman gifted her with a commemorative India jersey, but Rani did not include her in the World Cup squad, saying she was “still not fully recovered from rehab for her injury”.
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