Harmanpreet Singh

Hockey World Cup 2023:

The Indian team, which started its campaign with a dominating win over Spain, will face England's challenge in the second pool match (India vs England) of the FIH Men's Hockey World Cup in Rourkela on Sunday. Will be full of confidence to crack this tough exam.

India beat Spain 2-0 on Friday in the opening match of Pool D (India vs Spain) at the new Birsa Munda Stadium, but the England team will be equally challenging.

In the first two quarters, India played excellent attacking hockey and took the lead through local player Amit Rohidas' penalty corner and then doubled it through Hardik Singh.


Captain Harmanpreet Singh and vice-captain Rohidas again showed excellent defensive play, which impressed head coach Graham Reid.

Harmanpreet & Co. would look to put up another strong defensive performance against England.

England have scored in all four quarters in their win against Wales.

Reid said, “It is good to win the first match.

But the defensive effort was pleasing to watch and we kept possession of the ball.

There were hardly a few people who did not play well.

This is what you need to win the World Cup.

We will continue it in the next match as well."

The experienced PR Sreejesh and Krishan Bahadur Pathak were also excellent in front of the Indian goal, but England goalkeeper Oliver Payne also failed many attempts against Wales, especially in the final quarter.

The only weakness for the Indians was penalty corners as they could not convert any of the five they took against Spain.

However, Harmanpreet Singh, who has been the team's best player and top scorer in almost every tournament in recent years, could not reach the goal from the penalty corner apart from missing the penalty stroke.

He accepted it and he would like to compensate for this performance against England.

Not being able to convert the penalty corner into a goal against England could cost India dearly.

The Indian players will also have to be careful not to show any card from the referee as they had to play in the last quarter against Spain without Abhishek who was shown a yellow card for a foul.

The victory against England (India vs England) is important as it will take India one step closer to the quarter-finals.

The hosts would like to finish on top of their pool and will certainly look to dominate against Wales, the lower-ranked team in the group.

England are ranked fifth in the world rankings, one place above India, but there hasn't been much difference in performance between the two teams over the years.

Last year, both the teams had played three matches against each other.

The match between the two was a 4-4 draw in the Commonwealth Games.

The match ended in a 3-3 draw in the first leg of the FIH Pro League and India won the second match 4-3.

Nick Bandurak, top scorer at the 2002 Commonwealth Games with 11 goals, scored against Wales and Phil Roper, who was impressive in Birmingham, was also impressive.

England scored three field goals, the third of which was scored by Nikos Park.

Liam Ansell scored twice from the penalty corner.

India has won 10 matches against England while the England team has won only seven matches and four matches have been drawn.

Spain will take on Wales in another Pool D match on Sunday.

The match will start at 7 pm Indian time.

* Hockey World Cup: India made a winning start by defeating Spain 2-0 in their first match

Young cricketer Abir Nagpal made a record by scoring 29 centuries at the age of 13.