Hockey News: India women's 2022 FIH Women's Nations Cup campaign kicks off with a 3-1 victory over Chile

Within the regulation time, Sangita Kumari in the third minute, Sonika in the 11th minute and Navneet Kaur in the 32nd minute were the goalscorers for India. In contrast, in the 44th minute, Fernanda Villagran was the lone goalscorer for Chile.

Savita Punia led India to a good start in the opening quarter of the match. They put forth an excellent display of ball control to find gaps in the Chilean circle. 

Sangita Kumari slotted the ball past the Chilean goalkeeper into the net in the third minute after receiving an excellent pass from Vandana Katariya to open the scoring for India.

India continued with the winning momentum and doubled their lead in the 11th minute as Sonika slotted the ball into the goal with a slight deflection on the left flank with the assistance of Sangita.

The second quarter went much slower than the first, and the first half ended with a 2-0 lead for India. 

In the third quarter, Navneet Kaur further widened the lead for India to 3-0 after receiving an ariel pass from Neha Goyal. Chile managed to gain a consolation goal in the 44th minute as Fernanda Villagran fired the ball into the Indian goal with an excellent penalty corner flick.

Sangita, Vandana and Navneet created some fantastic opportunities for India in the fourth quarter. However, both sides failed to score more goals, and the match ended with India's 3-1 lead.

After the victory, Sonika said the player of the match said: "It's good to start the tournament with a win. Chile is a rapidly improving team, so we came up with a plan and stuck to it and stuck to our strengths throughout the game. The plan going forward will be the same too." 

India will lock horns with Japan in their next pool B clash of the FIH Women's Nations Cup on December 12.