India rode on a solitary strike by Shibani Devi to defeat hosts Kyrgyz Republic 1-0 of their opening match of the AFC U-17 Women’s Asian Cup Qualifiers Indonesia 2024, right here on Wednesday. Shibani scored the all-important purpose within the 77th minute from a low cross on the left by Viksit Bara.

It slipped beneath the fingers of Kyrgyz goalkeeper Violetta Dudochkina as Shibani raced on the far publish and slammed it in.

With Myanmar and India each successful 1-0 every in opposition to the Kyrgyz Republic, the following match between India and Myanmar on April 28 will decide the group winners. The winners of the tie will routinely make the grade, but when the 2 sides play out a draw, a penalty shoot-out will decide who tops the group and qualifies for the following spherical.

The first half started with each groups preventing it out within the center to take management of the state of affairs.

India had their first likelihood when Pooja’s cross from the proper landed up with Shivani Toppo, who didn’t profit from it. A couple of minutes later, an identical alternative was missed by Pooja, whose shot was simply collected by the rival goalkeeper. India had one other likelihood to open the scoresheet earlier than half time when Shivani’s nook was parried away by the keeper, who punched the ball earlier than Pooja may avail herself of the chance. Changing over, India began urgent exhausting and within the sixty fifth minute, that they had their finest likelihood thus far. Vikshit Bara unleashed a roller however couldn’t discover the goal. A couple of minutes later, Shibani pounced on a free ball and her shot went straight into the goalkeeper’s fingers. A purpose down, the Kyrgyz Republic started to mount some stress on the guests and India continued to maneuver the ball within the opponent’s ultimate third. With 10 minutes to go, coach Priya PV made some modifications, as Sulanjana got here instead of Shivani Toppo and Cindy changed Soniba. The transfer paid dividends as India have been in a position to defend the lead efficiently for the remainder of the interval.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse workers and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)