We need to improve our conversion rate: Sardar Singh

Antwerp, (Belgium): India captain Sardar Singh says his team must improve on its conversion rate ahead of their Hockey World League Semifinal opener on Saturday.

"Till now, everything is going fine and we have achieved satisfactory results in our training sessions and practice matches. It is unfortunate that we lost to Belgium in our practice match but we have learnt many things about our strategies from that match, which will help us. We are now focussing on our finishing and converting our attacks in goals," said Sardar.

"With the addition of new and young players, the team combination becomes more flexible, which is helping us to create more options in drawing new strategies. The weather is very cool here and best suited to playing hockey. We are looking forward to the first match against France," he added.

The women take on Belgium in their opening match.

Speaking post a practice session, captain Ritu Rani said: "The tournament is very important for our team. After the Incheon Asian Games, we have been preparing for this tournament and we have tried out various new strategies as well as team combinations in the Hawke?s Bay Cup and our preparatory camps and practice matches. In the match against Japan, we have learnt new aspects of our team combinations and we are working on our mistakes.

"There are higher-ranked teams in the tournament but we will focus on each match separately by keeping aside the rankings," she said.

The side had to lost to Japan in the practice match.