The Indian men’s hockey team, playing their first match in almost 12 months, got off to a great start by beating hosts Germany 6-1.
Nilkanth Sharma (13th minute), Vivek Sagar Prasad (27th and 28th minutes), Lalit Kumar Upadhyay (41st minute), Akashdeep Singh (42nd minute) and Harmanpreet Singh (47th minute) all contributed to India’s victory.
Eager for their first win of the season, the Indian team played aggressively from the start, putting pressure on the German defense. India got the first penalty corner in the 13th minute due to a consistent move, which was scored by Nilkanth. Then, in the next minute, Constantin Staib leveled the score at 1-1.
In the second session, Vivek scored two goals in a row to give India a 3-1 lead. In the third session, Germany won six penalty corners, but they could not score a single goal in front of Sreejesh’s strong defense. However, Lalit and Akashdeep added goals to extend India’s lead to 5-1. In the end, Harmanpreet scored to give India their first win of the four-match series.
