Indian Senior Women Volleyball Team, featuring unknown Odisha player Anjel Joseph won the silver medal by finishing runners-up in the Princess Cup 3rd AVC Asian Women Volleyball Challenge Cup, held at Nakhon Pathom, Thailand from 24-29 June 2022. Hong Kong emerged champions, while Malaysia finished third.

Even as named as a player from Odisha, Anjel Joseph, is not a native of Odisha. She, in fact, hails from Kerala. Her connection with Odisha is that she was or is an employee of East Coast Railway.

According to Volleyball Federation of India (VFI) joint-secretary Gaganendu Dash, this is the first time that the Indian Indian women team such a success in a major international tournament. The 14-member Indian team was led by Nirmal of Indian Railways. Aswathi and Ananya Das were liberos of the team.

India played five matches, won three and lost two. India beat Singapore 3-0 (25-16, 25-19, 25-8), Uzbekistan 3-0 (25-16, 25-13, 25-16) and Malaysia 3-0 (25-17, 25-16, 25-22). Lost to Hong Kong 2-3 (25-12, 25-18, 13-25, 19-25, 6-15) and Thailand 2-3 (25-23, 12-25, 22-25, 25-18, 13-15).

The Asian Women Volleyball Challenge Cup is a biennial international volleyball competition in Asia and Oceania contested by the bottom 10 senior women national teams of the members of Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC).

The first two editions of the tournament, due to take place in Hong Kong, China in 2018 and 2020, were cancelled due to unforeseen reasons and COVID-19 pandemic respectively. Tough counted as third edition, the recent one, in fact, was the inaugural edition of the championship.

However, this event should not be confused with the more prestigious continental competitions such as Asian Volleyball Championship and Asian Volleyball Cup.

INDIAN WOMEN VOLLEYBALL TEAM: Nirmal, Devika Devrajan, Anushree Ghosh, Jincy Johnson, Ananya Das (all Indian Railways); Saranya NS, Anushree KP, S Soorya, Jini KS, Sruthi M, R Aswathi (all Kerala); Angel Joseph (Odisha); Gunjan Rani (Rajasthan), Ambika (Himachal Pradesh).
Team Staff: Vijay Pal Singh (Manager), Pritam Singh Chauhan (Head Coach), Vaishali Phadtare (Assistant Coach).