India goes into Monday’s Pool D meeting with England at the Wagener Hockey Stadium in Amstelveen carrying a wait that now stretches to 32 years. The last time India beat England at a men’s Hockey World Cup, the venue was Sydney, the year was 1994, and the prize on the line was fifth place.
That World Cup had not been kind to India in the pool stage — a third-place finish in Pool B behind the Netherlands and Germany meant a route through the classification bracket rather than the semifinals. India needed a penalty shoot-out to get past Argentina in the crossover, winning 4-1 on strokes after a 2-2 draw, before the fifth-sixth place match against England on December 3.
England had arrived at the same fixture via its own crossover, beating South Korea 3-1. But on the day, it was India which found the solitary goal that settled it — a 1-0 win that sent Jude Felix-led India to fifth place.
There was no India-England meeting at the 1998 Utrecht World Cup, although both teams competed, with India finishing ninth and England sixth. England then won three straight — 3-2 in 2002, 3-2 in 2006 and 3-2 in 2010 — before a 2-1 win in 2014. There was no fixture in 2018, and the two sides played out a goalless draw at the last World Cup, in 2023.
That is the run India will try to break in Amstelveen, against an England side ranked third in the world and coming off a 4-1 win over Pakistan in its World Cup opener.
Published on Aug 17, 2026
