Playing its first international match after more than a year, the Indian men’s hockey team returned to action in style, winning 6-1 against Germany in the first of its four-match Europe tour here on Sunday. “It was thrilling to play after so long and the coach’s advice was ‘go and enjoy the game’, and so we did. This was the same German side playing the Pro League and I feel we did well, considering we were playing after a year,” captain P.R. Sreejesh said.
India’s last game before this was played in the Pro League on February 22 last year. Meanwhile in Dusseldorf, the women lost 1-0 in their second tour game, an improved showing after the 5-0 thrashing in the opener. Amelie Wortmann scored the winner in the 24th minute.
The results:
Men: India 6 (Vivek Sagar Prasad 2, Nilakanta Sharma, Lalit Upadhyay, Akashdeep Singh, Harmanpreet Singh) bt Germany 1 (Constantin Staib).
Women: Germany 1 (Amelie Wortmann 24) bt India 0 .
