India beat Wales: India has qualified for the Women's Hockey World Cup to be held in August this year. India achieved this success by making it to the semi-finals of the qualifier tournament being played in Hyderabad. Indian women's hockey team defeated Wales in its last match of Pool B and secured its ticket to the semi-finals. This is the sixth time in the 7 encounters so far, that the Indian women's hockey team has defeated Wales. India will face Italy in the semi-finals on March 13.
In its last match of Pool B, India defeated Wales 4-1. With this victory, Navneet Kaur's hat-trick played a big role in taking India to the semi-finals. Apart from him, young Sakshi Rana scored one goal. Sakshi Rana scored the first goal for the Indian women's hockey team in the match played at GMC Balayogi Stadium in Hyderabad. After this goal in the first quarter, the next two goals for India came from the stick of Navneet Kaur, which increased India's lead to 3-1 at half time.
In the third quarter, Wales counterattacked and managed to score a goal against India. But in the final quarter of the match, Navneet Kaur scored a hat-trick of goals and not only ensured India's victory but also confirmed the berth for the Women's Hockey World Cup 2026.
The Indian team had earlier started the tournament on March 8 with a resounding 4-0 win over Uruguay and then played a 2-2 draw against Scotland in the second match. With the win over Wales, the Indian team topped Pool B. And, as only the top two teams from each pool were to qualify. The result of that was that the Indian team had to be in Belgium and Netherlands between 14th to 30th August.
