Indian women’s hockey team starts Nations Cup tune-up with Tour of Australia

Hockey India on Tuesday announced that the Indian women’s hockey team will tour Australia from May 21 to June 3, 2026, as part of its preparations for the upcoming FIH Hockey Women’s Nations Cup New Zealand 2025-26, scheduled to take place from June 15 to 21 in Auckland.

As part of the tour, India will play four matches against Australia at the Perth Hockey Stadium from May 26 to 30, 2026. The first two matches will be played on May 26 and 27 at 5 pm IST, while the remaining two matches on May 29 and 30 at 11 am IST. Following the Tour of Australia, the team will travel to New Zealand where they will continue their preparations with practice matches ahead of the Nations Cup.

The Indian women’s hockey team heads into the tour after an encouraging outing in Argentina earlier this year, where the team showed immense grit to finish their four-match tour with two wins. Since returning from the tour, the squad has been training intensively at the national camp in SAI Bengaluru, focusing on improving key areas ahead of a packed international calendar.

With support from Anandana, the Coca-Cola India Foundation, the drag-flickers in the team will also undergo a specialised dragflick training clinic under Dutch legend Taeke Taekema from May 26 to June 21, 2026, in Perth, Australia, as well as Auckland, New Zealand.

Speaking about the importance of the tour, Chief Coach Sjoerd Marijne said: “Very happy that this tour has been made possible by Hockey India because these matches will help us identify our shortcomings and also our improvements after our camps. We have seen what the benchmark is when we played Argentina, we can now test how close we are to reach the level of our last two wins and maintain the momentum.”

He further explained how the tour will help the team adapt to conditions before heading to New Zealand. “Instead of making a long flight we cut the travel in pieces so the acclimatisation will go faster. The weather is colder in New Zealand and Australian (Perth) conditions will be closer to that,” he added.