The Indian women’s hockey team made a stunning start to their campaign as they managed to hold China to a 2-2 draw in their opening match of Group D in the 2026 Women’s Hockey World Cup on Sunday (August 16) at the Wagener Stadium in Amstelveen, a city in the Netherlands. The result has given India a brilliant chance to qualify for the second round of the tournament with two games still remaining.

Coming into the game, India had lost to China, who won a silver medal in the 2024 Paris Olympics and also won a gold medal in both the recent Asian Cup (2025) and Asian Games (2023). However, the Women in Blue, who wore their alternate white kit today, put up a positive display as they played with a fearless attitude and attacked their opponents in an end-to-end game, with Sjoerd Marinje putting up a tactical masterclass.

The Women in Blue took the lead twice in the game. Navneet scored the opening goal of the all-Asian fixture with a goal in the eighth minute by Navneet Kaur. However, Zhang Ying equalised in the dying seconds of the first quarter after the Chinese were awarded a penalty stroke.

Later, they took the lead once again in the second quarter as Deepika found the back of the net in the 25th minute from a penalty corner. The Tokyo Olympics’ fourth-placed team retained their lead till the half-time break.

However, the Asian champions managed to level in the third quarter with MA Ning scoring in the 39th minute, which came from a penalty corner. There were no goals in the fourth quarter, which ensured the match finished 2-2 with both teams missing chances to score a winner.

The Salima Tete-led team will next face South Africa on Tuesday (18th August) and England on Thursday (20th August) in their remaining two matches. Both games will also take place in Amstelveen.

FULL-TIME STATS: India 2-2 China

Goals scored: India 2, China 2

Goals conceded: India 2, China 2

Field goals: India 1, China 0

Penalty corners earned: India 3, China 4

Penalty corners scored: India 1, China 1

Penalty corner efficiency: India 33.33%, China 25%

Penalty strokes earned: India 0, China 2

Penalty strokes scored: India 0, China 1

Green cards: India 1, China 1

Yellow cards: India 0, China 0

Red cards: India 0, China 0