Indian women rugby sevens team achieves its best-ever sixth-place finish at Asian Games

The Indian women’s rugby sevens team may not have ascended to the podium but it recorded its best-ever finish at the Asian Games after taking sixth place at Aichi-Nagoya 2026.

India’s rugby sevens campaign ended with a 20-0 defeat to Kazakhstan in the fifth-place playoff at the Nagoya City Mizuho Park Rugby Field on Saturday. However, the sixth-place finish bettered their previous best of seventh at Hangzhou 2023.

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Kazakhstan proved a step too far, shutting Paul Delport’s India side out 20-0. India scored 10 tries across their five matches, their highest tally at any single Asian Games edition, and scored in four of those contests.

Sandhyarani Tudu led India with four tries, while Arti Kumari crossed twice. Bhumika Shukla, Amandeep Kaur, Kalyani Patil and Nirmalya Rout scored one try apiece.

It was also a campaign of firsts for India, who won two rugby sevens matches at a single edition of the Asian Games for the first time and registered their first victory at the continental showpiece in 16 years.

Only the women’s team represented India in rugby sevens at the Asian Games 2026.

India women began their Pool E campaign with a 33-7 defeat to Hong Kong China before going down 43-5 against the People’s Republic of China. They bounced back with a 26-5 victory over Malaysia in their final pool match – their first Asian Games win since beating the Republic of Korea 21-10 in the seventh-place playoff in 2010.

Indian women rugby sevens team captain Shikha Yadav said after the Malaysia win that a top five finish was a realistic goal for the team. Pics: Olympics.com/ X

Indian captain credits defensive intensity for victory

Speaking after the Malaysia match, captain Shikha Yadav credited India’s defensive intensity for the breakthrough victory. “It’s our first victory against Malaysia. We haven’t played against them, and the girls played very well,” Shikha had said after the match. “The girls were really dominating on the defence side of things, and they were playing really quick. And the intensity led us to the win.”

Shikha also pointed to India finding the try line against both Hong Kong China and China despite the defeats as a positive, adding after the Malaysia win that a top-five finish was a realistic goal for the team.

Both Hong Kong China and China went on to win medals at the Asian Games 2026. Hosts Japan beat China for the gold while Hong Kong China secured bronze.

India carried the momentum into the 5th-8th place classification match, beating Singapore 22-5 to register an unprecedented second successive victory and advance to the fifth-place playoff.

Pic: Olympics.com