BIG TEST FOR KENYA: As Ghana stands on the way in FIH World League

Eastern Ibrahim (left) in action against Kenya Police Oliver Echenje at City Park on Tuesday. [PHOTO: JENIPHER WACHIE / standard]

Ghanaian women’s sides Ghana Police and Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) are yearning to face Kenyans in the ongoing Africa Cup for Club Championships. The West Africans who make the bulk of the Ghana national team believe that the Kenyan test is all they need ahead of the International Hockey Federation (FIH) World League Two.

Ghana men and women qualified for the next round of the FIH World league series after beating Kenya by an identical score of 1-0 in round one played last year in Accra, Ghana.

National team vice captain Nafisatu Umaru who plays for Ghana Police told Feverpitch that they are hoping to play Kenyan teams several times so as to gauge themselves.

“We had two objectives coming to Kenya and apart from winning the trophy we wanted to gauge ourselves against Kenyan sides. We were eager to meet them in the group stages and the knockout but we were not pooled together so we hoping to play Telkom Orange in the semis because it will be good for us,” Umaru said.

The two Ghanaian sides were grouped in pool B together with Heartland Flickers of Nigeria, Wananchi of Uganda and Dar Ladies of Tanzania. Umaru said that after playing all their group matches the only encounter that made them feel tested was against their very on GRA.

“These matches are part of our preparation for the world league and I feel that we are yet to be challenged. We have played four matches so far and we only felt challenged when we played GRA most of who are our team mates in the national team,” she added.

She added that they are banking on the Kenyan matches because they want to increase their physical strength. “We want to improve on our strength and their is no better way of doing it that taking the Kenyan test. In Kenya, players have physical strength and that is what we lack in our team. Leaving without playing Orange will be a loss for us because we would have failed in achieving one of our goals,” she said.

Umaru concluded that their aim at World League Two to be held in Valencia,Spain is to their performance and move up on the FIH world rankings. This will be Ghana’s third participation at the global event having taken part in two since 2013. They finished eighth in the 2013 games played in South Africa and moved one place up to finish seventh in 2015.