Vandana Katariya: Taunted and told not to play, hockey trailblazer set to become first Indian woman to play 300 international games

The landmark moment will arrive when Vandana takes the field against Japan in the Asian Champions Trophy here.

On the eve of the match, Vandana was at ease. After the training session where the 31-year-old matches the national team’s youngsters Sangita Kumari and Lalremsiami, she quips: “Oh! Mujhe spotlight nahi chahiye (I don’t want to be in the spotlight).”

But the spotlight will well and truly be on her Tuesday evening. “When I started, I didn’t think I would be playing for India. I didn’t even know that was an option, and I certainly didn’t think I would be playing 300 matches,” Vandana says. Her career will come full circle as Vandana made her international debut back in September 2011 at the same tournament in Ordos, China.

Vandana didn’t have it easy. While her father Nahar Singh backed her, there used to be taunts from neighbours, among which was about a girl child being allowed to play a sport that required her to wear shorts. After initial apprehensions, her father ensured she continued to play at coach Krishna Kumar’s academy in Roshanabad.

“Earlier, people came and told my family some things and I used to wonder why I was born a girl. But I always believed that society should change,” Vandana says. “Something should happen that would help girls come out and do things. So I just kept training and today there are more than 250 kids who play hockey in our village, of which most are girls. It feels good when they come to meet me and speak to me about my training and other aspects.”

Former head coach Sjoerd Marijne, who oversaw the Indian women’s team’s famous campaign in Tokyo where they finished fourth, said that when he met Vandana for the first time, her fitness levels were incredible and she was a forward who just wanted to “score, score, score”.

“She runs the same in the Yo-Yo test as some of the men,” says Marijne. “At the beginning of my stint, she was very focused on scoring herself, then I tried to give her insights into how she could keep scoring more but also be busy with the team. She’s a striker and there is nothing wrong with being focused on scoring goals for herself.”

“And she was always open-minded and her mindset changed by focusing more on teamwork. Before the Olympics, I told her ‘you have to be the energy-maker for the team’. She went on to be the leading scorer for the team,” the Dutchman adds.

Both Marijne and Schopman regard Vandana’s reverse hit as her deadliest weapon.

“Her standout quality is her mindset, she is a very fit player but she also works really hard at it. And she has one of the best backhand shots I have seen in world hockey. In general, her deflections and goal-scoring ability is very good,” Schopman says.

That backhand hit caught Marijne’s eye very early: “There are different styles of course but she can hit that shot from every angle, the way she does it, she can shoot from any position. She puts her whole body behind that, it gives her the extra speed. And besides that, she is fearless inside the circle.”

In her decade-plus-long career, Vandana has been a part of teams that have taken women’s hockey to new heights. But her biggest moment came at the Tokyo Olympics two years ago, where her hat-trick against South Africa – the first-ever by an Indian woman at the Olympics – took the team to the quarterfinals.

India then stunned one of the favourites, Australia, to reach the semifinals and eventually finished fourth. That Tokyo Olympics campaign often finds a mention in the conversation with Vandana as she calls it the highlight of her career alongside the bronze at the 2013 Junior World Cup.

It was while she was in Tokyo when Vandana’s family got the attention they could have done without. After India’s defeat against Argentina in the semifinals, three men landed at her home and insulted the family members. Her brother, speaking to The Indian Express, had said: “The youths said how can people of my caste play in the national team? Our family is in a state of fear because they also threatened to kill us.”

But the worst phase of her career was before Tokyo when her father passed away and she couldn’t attend the funeral because she was inside the bio-bubble at the camp in Bengaluru.

She recalls being broken back then. “Even standing up felt difficult,” Vandana says. “Many of the home responsibilities fell on me. To face all that back then, the support of the team was huge. They lifted me.”

“I thought then that I would not be able to play anymore. But there was the Olympic Games in front of us, the team was working so hard. And if I was not able to do it for the team, all of them would have been affected. The team didn’t let me feel lonely even for a second. It is only because of my teammates and coaches that I am here.”

It’s this late in her career that she is actually playing a standalone women’s tournament at home in India. Vandana has been relishing every moment of it, celebrating her goals with gusto in front of packed stands as well as setting up her teammates with delicious assists. After all, she is the complete forward now.

And she still feels young: “On the ground, we are just players. Junior or senior, we are just one player in the team. I feel good, I don’t like to show that I am a senior, I enjoy being in a group like that. Nahi, mujhe bilkul 31 feel nahi hota hai.”

Vandana Katariya factfile:

Senior debut: 2011 Women’s Asian Champions Trophy, Ordos (China)

Stats: 153 goals, from 299 appearances (as per FIH data)

Highlights:

-Bronze medal at 2013 Junior World Cup (Mönchengladbach, Germany)
-Part of Rio 2016 squad, when India women qualified for first time in 36 years
-Part of Tokyo 2020 squad when India finished fourth.
-Became the first Indian woman to score a hat-trick at the Olympics
-Asian Games: Silver (2018), Bronze (2014, 2023)
-Commonwealth Games: Bronze (2022)