We knew we had the potential to beat the best

Winning the gold medal at the Commonwealth Games is certainly a great achievement by our young hockey team. Some of the best teams in world hockey participated in the tournament, yet we emerged best. It is also a great feeling to have been the captain of the victorious team.

After losing to the United States in the play-off match of the World Cup qualifier last month, the girls were depressed. But we went to Manchester determined to do well. We knew we had the potential to beat the best.

Yes, it is true that our journey to the crown was like a dream. We started with a narrow victory over Canada but lost to New Zealand in the second match of the league stage and almost gave up hopes of making it to the semi-finals, leave alone reaching the final. But then a 1-1 draw with England saw us finish as the third team in the group and kept us in the race.

As per the rules of the tournament, the top two teams -- New Zealand and Australia -- from the two groups directly got berths in the semi-finals, but the second and third teams had to play a cross play-off. We finished third and played South Africa, who had finished second in their group.

What a match that was. It was really tough and tiring. At one stage we were trailing 0-3, but we pulled ourselves together and staged a superb recovery. In the end, we not only managed to level the score but went on to win 4-3 and steal a place in the final.

That was the shot in the arm our girls needed. It was a morale booster. Our opponents in the semi-finals were New Zealand. In the other semi-final, favourites Australia took on England. Having played New Zealand in the league stage earlier, we knew we could beat them, as we lost the first meeting only because of a couple of silly mistakes in defence.

The girls were determined to avenge their defeat. The night before the game we watched the recording of our earlier encounter half a dozen times and noted our weaknesses and their strong points. Once that was done the rest became easy. We strengthened our defence and managed to keep their forwards in check. We won the match 2-1, though the margin of victory should have been more.

In the other semi-final, England shocked Australia, who many thought would win the gold.

In the final against England, the girls were relaxed. They knew they were assured of at least the silver medal. The ball swung from one end to the other. We surprised England by scoring first, in the 21st minute, through Mamta Kharab, from a penalty-corner. Then Sita Gossain made it 2-0 about ten minutes later.

England were stunned, but they pressed hard and our defenders began to feel the pressure. They pulled one back just before half-time and scored again immediately on resumption in the second half, through Sarah Blanks and Jene Smith respectively. Thereafter, the exchanges got even with both teams trying hard for a goal.

Extra-time was a battle of nerves. We had seen all of England's matches and I knew that if we were to win this final we needed to mark some of their key players, particularly their number 17 whose name [Jane Smith] I do not remember. We managed to keep her in check and that yielded results. Kharab's goal in the dying moments of extra-time gave us the gold medal. We were all on cloud nine; we knew we had achieved something which at one stage looked almost impossible.

But, amidst all the rejoicing, we were in for a shock when the umpire disallowed the goal on technical grounds. We appealed against the verdict and, fortunately, the jury upheld our protest. Rest is now part of history.

I must say that our coaches and other members of the Indian contingent really backed and encouraged us right through. That helped a lot. But now that the Commonwealth gold is ours, we cannot rest. We have to carry on the good work at the coming Asian Games.

Captain of the Indian women's hockey team Suraj Lata Devi spoke to Onkar Singh

Design: Uday Kuckian