Melbourne: Australia's reputation as hot favourites to win the Commonwealth Games women's field hockey was dented on Thursday as the Hockeyroos sweated to a 4-2 win over India.
India, fielding just six players who won the title in Manchester four years ago, forced a 2-2 scoreline in the first half before the lacklustre home team recovered to grab full points in the group A match.
Rebecca Sanders made it 3-2 for the Hockeyroos six minutes after resumption with a penalty corner before Angela Skirving made it a flattering scoreline with a last-minute goal.
Australia, cheered by some 6,000 home fans at the packed State Netball and Hockey Centre, wasted nine of their 11 penalty corners in the hard-fought encounter.
The Indian girls did not allow a first-minute goal by Wendy Beattie to upset their rhythm and forced the equaliser in the 13th minute through Asunta Lakra's stinging penalty corner hit.
India took the lead in the 22nd minute Mamta Kharb deflected Lakra's penalty corner into the open goal, but Karen Smith drew level less than a minute later with a field goal.
"For a team that has not had international exposure for six months, my girls played quite well," said Indian coach Maharaj Kaushik.
"We kept them under pressure right through the first half, but should not have allowed them to come back in the second."
Hockeyroos' captain Melanie Twitt said the tough win gave the hosts a lot of confidence for the rest of the tournament.
"India are a very fast, skilled and quick team," she said. "It's the first game and everything was pretty frantic.
"We got a lot of confidence from this game."
In other matches, New Zealand overcame a good fightback by Scotland to win 2-1 in group B and Malaysia recorded their first ever victory in the Commonwealth Games by defeating Nigeria 4-0 in group A.
New Zealand appeared to have wrapped up the match when they led by two goals with just six minutes remaining, but Scotland launched a desperate offensive towards the end to rattle their opponents.
Samantha Judge's goal in the 64th minute to make it 1-2 triggered a Scottish revival but they were denied the equaliser by the tough Kiwi defence.
New Zealand, fancied to finish among the top two in the group along with England, were lucky to snatch three full points in their opening match.
England play their first game on Friday against Canada, who routed Barbados 4-0 earlier on Thursday.
The Malaysians had failed to secure full points in either the 1998 Games at home in Kuala Lumpur or at Manchester four years ago.
But Nigeria proved easy meat as the Malaysians pumped in three goals in the second half after captain Hashim Norfaraha had put them ahead three minutes before the interval.
Intan Ahmad scored two goals and Nadia Rahman netted one to complete an emphatic win for the Asian nation in the group A match.
Malaysia, however, face an uphill task to finish among the top two in the group which has Australia, defending champions India and South Africa as the other teams.
"A win will do the girls a lot of good because even they know the remaining three matches will be very tough," said Malaysia's Indian coach Chidambaram Kumar.
Malaysia next play Australia on Friday.
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