In the final game ahead of the knockout stages, England meet the underdogs of the Pool, Malaysia. Having already suffered defeats at the hands of Barbados and Malawi, the Asian side are expected to make it a hat-trick of defeats against Sue Hawkins’ well drilled team.
Ranked 23 in the world, Malaysia have not had the best track record at World Championships and you have to go way back to 1983 and their first appearance at the tournament for their best finish. On this occasion they managed 11th but they are more likely to be competing to avoid the dreaded wooden spoon this time round. The Malaysian team will be well supported in the stadium but their preference on fielding a young squad for experience points to the coaches having one eye on the future and not expecting too much from this tournament. The ‘veteran’ of the team is 24 year-old attacker Aruna Santhappan who will need to guide her young team through a challenging task. Head Coach Choo Kon Lee saw her team lose twice in warm up matches against local rivals Singapore but remains optimistic that Malaysia can produce a good showing.
England Co-Captain Karen Atkinson gave her thoughts and what England are expecting from tomorrow’s opposition. She said “I think it will be quite similar to today, they keep possession well like Barbados did and they work the ball well into their shooter so I think we have to actually go for more ball and turnover more ball.
“I thought Serena Guthrie did well in the last quarter today and was really trying to get ball, we just need to build every single quarter so that one quarter we move seamlessly to the next and score a similar amount of goals every time.”
A win for England would see them seal top spot in Pool D and set up a match against the winner of the Samoa/Northern Ireland game to be played just before them.
This match is not scheduled to be shown on Sky Sports but you can follow live updates on the game with England Netball
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ENGLAND v MALAWI, Sky Sports 4, Wednesday July 6th @ 5pm
Content: Alex Sexton, England Netball