India wins Asia Cup hockey in style, qualifies for 2026 World Cup

2026 World Cup: India has become only the fourth country to have entered all 16 editions of the hockey World Cup. The Harmanpreet Singh-led India clinched their fourth Asia Cup in Rajgir, Bihar, on September 7 and qualified directly for the 2026 tournament to be held jointly by Belgium and the Netherlands in August. India’s previous Asia Cup triumph had come in 2017.

The other three countries that have qualified for all 16 World Cups, since its launch in 1971, are Germany and the Netherlands, both three-time champions, and Spain. India has won the World Cup only once, in 1975, and in the previous edition, held in 2023 in Bhubaneswar and Rourkela, the team finished a dismal ninth.

In all, eight teams, including World Cup hosts Germany and the Netherlands, have qualified for the next year’s event, and eight more will join them later. The winner of the Africa Cup of Nations in October and seven teams from the next year’s World Cup Qualifiers will complete the 16-team roster.

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Cakewalk for India

The Indian team was never really in doubt of winning the Asia Cup against relatively weak opposition and in front of the packed and vociferous home fans in Rajgir. They remained unbeaten throughout the tournament, winning six of the seven matches, while one ended in a draw.

Ashok Kumar, a former India hockey Captain who scored the winning goal in the 1975 World Cup final, said the Asia Cup win was quite important. “We’ll have to consider it significant as we have won this trophy after eight years while we won an Olympic medal after 41 years, in 2021 in Tokyo. This, in other words, means that all the other Asian countries were better than India these intervening eight years,” Ashok Kumar told Patriot.

Before clinching bronze in Tokyo, India’s previous Olympic hockey medal had come in 1980 — a gold, in a depleted field in Moscow.

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Weak Asia Cup rivals

Ashok Kumar put things in perspective when he pointed out that the competing teams, barring Korea, posed no real threat for India. “In the entire tournament, India’s lone tough match was against Korea [2-2 draw in the Super 4s stage]. So, when the opponents are weak and the pressure is less, it seems all the players are playing well. If you see India’s win from another angle, our positivity increased. At the end of the day, the win was a morale booster for the team, and the biggest thing was that we qualified for the World Cup,” he said, analysing India’s performance.