AFC Women's Asian Cup | Indian women draw blank against Iran in opener

01/21/2022

It wasn't the best of starts for the Indian football team at the AFC Women’s Asian Cup 2022, as they began their campaign with a 0-0 draw against 70th ranked Iran on Thursday evening. Even though the Indian team came close to scoring several times, they were held by the Iranian defence.

After their first encounter, the Indian team are placed second in the Group A point table, behind China. Iran is third, while Chinese Taipei is at the fourth position.

At the start of the match, India dominated the match proceedings as expected, and enjoyed the major chunk of the possession, but failed to score. They even had two shots on target, but were denied by Iran goalkeeper Zohreh Koudaei. Then in the 12th minute, India survived a scare when an Iranian player narrowly missed the net.

At the half-hour mark, Indian striker Manisha did come close to scoring, but could not convert a cross from Indumathi Kathiresan. On the other hand, Negin Zandi kept on testing Indian defence, but without any success.

The second half saw the Indian eves dominate the match a bit more, but a goal still eluded them. Indumathi missed an opportunity this time to score. In the 77th minute Dangmei Grace did come up with something special, but was denied by Koudaei. In short, it was an evening of misses for the Indians.

Now the Indian eves face Chinese Taipei in their second match on January 23.