It is India, India all the way in hockey

Indian hockey is going through its golden times. Its teams – junior men, junior women and men – all—have been winning ways. After suffering back to back defeats at hands of both Belgium and Great Britain in the FIH Pro League Mini Tournament in London, India has not only salvaged some of its lost prestige but has also returned to winning ways.

After dumping Olympic champions Belgium 5-1 on Saturday, India went full stretch to extract a bonus point by winning the penalty shootout against the hosts Great Britain 4-2 after playing a 4-4 draw in the regulation period. Five points from the last two games has put India at number two position in the FIH Pro League with 25 points from 11 games. Not only that, India also stays at number one position by aggregating 39 goals with Indian skipper Harmanpreet Singh still ahead of others in the individual tally with 15 goals.

The home team’s  Sam Ward scored four goals but it was not enough to prevent his side from going down to India. The game was eventually decided in a shoot-out, which India claimed 4-2, after the match ended 4-4 in regulation time.

Last time India beat Great Britain was in the Tokyo Olympics in July, 2021 when India won 3-1.

Later in the day, the Belgian women continued their unbeaten record in the mini-tournament, claiming a comfortable 3-1 victory over China, who once again only really fired in the second half.

Great Britain created plenty of early chances, forcing Indian goalkeeper Krishan Pathak to make several excellent saves. India’s first real chance came off a first penalty corner and captain Harmanpreet Singh made full use of it, dragging it into the left corner to take the lead.

The home team responded almost immediately, earning a penalty corner just 25 seconds later. Sam Ward’s drag flick caught a small deflection off the edge of Amit Rohidas’s stick for the equaliser.

But the Indians came back at them with two great field goals before half time, the first a bullet of a strike from Mandeep Singh for his 99th career goal, and the next a reserve stick strike from Sukhjeet Singh.

With just over five minutes to go in the third quarter, Ward made sure that GB stayed in touch with his 100th international goal. This time, Pathak just couldn’t get enough stick on Ward’s strike from the penalty corner.

An action-packed final quarter saw Ward completing his hat-trick with a field goal, finding the equaliser for GB at 3-3. India then regained the lead five minutes later, Dilpreet Singh, Vivek Prasad and Abhishek combining to put their team in front. But another beautiful strike from Ward for his first four-goal haul in GB colours took the match to a shootout. Rupert Shipperley and Phil Roper missed their chances while the Indians slotted in all of theirs to take the 4-2 win.

Vivek Prasad who was named player of the match said: “It was a really good effort for the team. It was well played by all the players. It was teamwork – that’s why we won here, because [Great Britain] is a very tough team… I believe in myself, I’m not worried about who is the tallest or strongest but I believe in my skill and what I can do best.”

In the women’s game, Belgium took the lead in the first quarter when Charlotte Engelbert’s dink into the circle on the reverse was fired into the bottom left corner by Justine Rasir. The Belgians doubled that lead in the second quarter. Having turned it over, Barbara Nelen drove it into the circle for a well-taken strike by Emily White.

Belgium still held that 2-0 lead heading into the half-time break but knew not to take anything for granted after seeing the Chinese fighting their way back from 3-1 down and pushing GB all the way a day earlier.

But a great comeback was not on the cards for the Chinese. The first time Belgian goalkeeper Elodie Picard was brought into action was towards the end of the third quarter, but she was up to the task to keep Zou Meirong’s shot out of goal.

A much better final quarter from China saw them playing themselves back into the game. The ball was recycled off a good penalty corner variation and fell to Liu Chencheng who drilled it in to halve the deficit.

After the goal, China immediately pulled off its keeper to push for an equaliser with an extra player. But it cost them when they conceded a penalty corner soon after and none of the defenders could stop Stephanie Vanden Borre’s drag into the top of the goal to seal the 3-1 win.

Vanden Borre was named player of the match and said: “We are super-happy with the three points. It was what we wanted and we have them. With the last goal, we had some difficulties at the end, so it was a good relief from the pressure they were putting on us. We know what they did yesterday and we expected that they would push in the second half so we were ready for it and we can be happy with the three points we have now.”

Prabhjot Singh