Sultan of Johor Cup 2025: India beats defending champion Great Britain in opener- Highlights
Catch all the Highlights from India's first match of the 2025 Sultan of Johor Cup against Great Britain.
India take on Great Britain in the opening game of 2025 Sultan of Johor cup. (Photo Credits: Hockey India)
The Indian men's hockey team began its campaign against Great Britain at the 2025 Sultan of Johor Cup in Johor Bahru, Malaysia, on Saturday.
This tournament is a dress rehearsal for the young Indian team, which is preparing for the upcoming Junior World Cup on home soil later this year.
In the opening game, India faced the most successful and defending champion, the Great Britain side, and kicked off the tournament with a thrilling 3-2 victory.
As it happened:
The Indian junior men's hockey team started their 2025 Sultan of Johar Cup campaign with a 3-2 win against the defending champion Great Britain.
Captain Rohit scored a brace with two penalty corner conversions, while Ravneet Singh scored the first goal of the match for India.
In an end-to-end game, India proved to be the better side, having much more attacking intent than their rivals.
Despite their lead being nullified twice, the team didn't lose their attacking intent and bounced back strongly to take the lead for the third time, and this time maintained it till the final whistle.
India 3-2 Great Britain
After poor penalty corner routines in the first three attempts, captain Rohit stepped up and found the back of the net on the fourth time of asking, giving India the lead with a thunderous drag flick on the top right.
India 2-2 Great Britain
Great Britain finds India on the back foot right from the kickoff and finds an Indian foot that too as a last man of defence, resulting in a Penalty stroke.
India 2-1 Great Britain
With just 2 seconds on the clock, India found a penalty corner which was easily converted into a goal by Rohit with a powerful dragflick on the bottom left corner of the goalkeeper
India 1-1 Great Britain
Because of high press from India, Great Britain is finding a good chance of counter-attack, which might hurt India if the defence failed to hold their line on time.
India 1-1 Great Britain
India is keeping possession in the second half and putting up a lot of pressure on the British defence, creating near baseline runs from the right flank to find an opening on goal.
After a goalless first quarter, both teams came onto the ground with much hunger for a goal, and some speedy runs on counterattacks were made, which resulted in a couple of goals.
Ravneet Singh opened the scoring with a precise finish, diving to connect with a loose ball from a wide right-flank pass, slotting it into an open net.
Great Britain didn't take much time to find an equaliser when Michael Royden scored a chip goal in a 3 on 2 situation against Indian defence within the next 5 minutes.
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