India and Spain earn three points each on Day 1 of the FIH Hockey Women’s Nations Cup in Valencia

India and hosts Spain began their campaign on a positive note at the 2022 FIH Hockey Women’s Nations Cup that got underway at Valencia on Sunday. India beat Chile 3-1 to earn three points, while Spain defeated Ireland 2-0 to collect three points in the opening encounter of the competition.

Sangita Kumari (2'), Sonika (10') and Navneet Kaur (31') were the goal scorers for the Indian team. While Fernanda Villagran (43') shot one back for Chile.

Sonika, who set up the first Indian goal, was instrumental in scoring the second and was awarded the player of the match award.

“It’s good to start the tournament with a win. The Chile team is rapidly improving, so we came up with a plan and stuck to it and stuck to our strengths throughout the game. The plan going forward will be the same too,” the Indian player was quoted as saying by the FIH website.

India scored an early goal to put Chile's team under pressure. Sangita Kumari was on target in the second minute of the game to send a warning signal to the South American team.

Before Chile could recover from a shock early goal, India pumped in a second goal through Sonika in the 10th minute.

Chile put up a good showing in the second quarter and denied the Indian forward line to further increase the scoreboard. However, in the third quarter Navneet Kaur scored India's third goal in the 31st minute.

Chile, however, managed to convert 43rd minute penalty corner through Fernanda Villagran (1-3). Chile's goalie Natalia Salvador did a fine job of keeping the Indian attackers from scoring in the final quarter.

India will take on Japan in their second on Monday. Japan also secured three points by scoring 2-1 win against South African side. Earlier, in the opening encounter of the tournament Korea and Italy played 1-all to share one point each.