6th July 2022
Indian Women’s Hockey Team hold China 1-1 draw in their second pool B match at the FIH Women’s Hockey World Cup Spain & Netherlands 2022 on Tuesday. Goals were scored by Jiali Zheng (26′) of China and Vandana Katariya (45′) of India.
In their first match on Sunday, India had held England to a 1-1 draw where it was Vandana who had scored for the team.
Initially, China was dominating the game and keeping the ball in its possession, but the game changed in-between and India made some lethal circle penetrations that could have earned them an early lead.
One such opportunity came in the 6th minute when Sharmila Devi and Navneet Kaur worked in tandem to take a shot on goal. But Navneet’s strike was blocked by a strong Chinese defence.
In the second quarter, China’s Jiali Zheng scored a goal in the 26th minute. India continued to work some impressive formations in their attack, earning the team another PC in the 27th minute but Monika who took the shot couldn’t make much of the chance, thus ending the second quarter with China leading 1-0.
The third quarter India won couple of PC, but failed to score. Finally, in the 45th minute India team converted from their 5th PC of the match. It was the experienced striker Vandana Katariya, who once again, was the cynosure of India’s PC attack. She picked up a brilliant deflection off Gurjit’s fiercely-struck dragflick sending the ball flying past the Chinese goalie.
On 7th July, India will take on New Zealand in their third pool B match.
