Valencia: In the 4-Nations Invitational Junior Men Hockey tournament, India beat the hosts Spain 3-1 yesterday. With this win, India went atop the pool table after the round-robin stages. While in the 5- Nations Invitational Junior Women Hockey tournament, India lost to 2-1 to Germany.
Starting with the men’s version, India put in pressure tactics since early and pushed the hosts on the defensive. Such was their dominance that they won their first PC in the 5th minute to be converted by Parvinder Singh’s to take the team to a 1-0 lead.
The hosts bounced back in the 16th minute via a penalty corner conversion by Gerard Garcia, but that happened to be the only successful hit on the Indian goal post.
India hit another goal at the dying minute of the first half via Nilakanta Sharma to take the team to a 2-1 lead into the break.
Coming off the break, Spain came out more organised, though they couldn’t make much of it and India got another goal in the 41st minute via Armaan Qureshi to take the match to the final scores, as India held on for a 3-1 win.
India to play the hosts, Spain in the semi-final of the 4-Nations Invitational Tournament on 29th October 2016.
On the other hand, in the Women’s Tournament, India went down 2-1 to Germany in a thrilling encounter.
It was the German team which started the scoreboard rolling as Elisia Grave opened the scoring for her team in the 25th minute via a PC conversion. India, though, came back stronger in the first half as Jyoti Gupta hit the ball in the back of the net via a penalty corner in the dying minutes of the match.
Second half saw fierce battle to get the lead and it was Spain again as Julia Meffert gave Germany the lead in the 58th minute via another PC conversion to seal a narrow victory.
India to play Belgium at the 5-Nations Invitational Tournament on 29th October 2016.