How India’s Most Capped Player Vandana Katariya Would be Fondly Remembered in Indian Women’s Hockey

Vandana Katariya’s immense contribution to Indian women’s hockey would be fondly remembered across decades. Her decision to call time on her international hockey playing career has been greeted with ‘surprise and disappointment’ because there is a general line of thought that she had a lot of hockey left in her that could have been leveraged by the national team, especially with just a year for the 2026 World Cup – further, she is touted as one of the fittest players around even at the age of 32.

It is hard to even imagine the Haridwar girl blocking the way for youngsters as she is in the best phase of her life fitness-wise, and there was also nothing to suggest that her game had drastically fallen away or she had suffered any slump in form. Clearly, it was observed that Vandana steadily moved away from a regular member of the playing XI to being used sparingly in matches over the six-eight months. Injury niggles might have contributed to this, but one is not sure because not much is in public domain as to whether a player is rested or dropped and excluded on injury grounds.

The India leg of the 2024-25 Pro League at the Kalinga Stadium was one reinforcement of the fact the national team have started to look ahead with a bevy of exciting young forwards. Vandana’s last appearance wearing the number sixteen jersey was the first leg tie against the Netherlands, which India had lost 2-4 – she had featured only in three out of eight games – the other two games against England (first leg tie – India won 3-2) and Spain (second leg tie – India lost 0-1).

The most capped Indian women’s hockey player (320 caps) with 94 goals under her belt, made her senior international debut at the 2009 FIH Champions Challenge II Tournament held at Kazan, Russia – she has been orchestrating several success stories with the national across fifteen years. The Indian Railway-employed forward was at her best in the Indian hockey eves’ fourth-place finish at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.

The girl, who hails from Roshnabad village in Haridwar district of Uttarakhand, scored a fine hat-trick in India’s 4-3 win over South Africa in a must-win situation for the team to secure a quarterfinal berth – thus becoming the first Indian women hockey player to score a hat-trick in the Olympics.

It is hard to document all of her success stories with the national side in one article but one can surely touch on some prominent ones – she captained India to glory in the 2016 Asian Champions Trophy and was also a member of the gold-winning 2023 Asian Champions Trophy Indian team.

How one can forget her handy equaliser against Australia in the semifinal of the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games that took the contest into a shootout where India had the last laugh. She was a part of the silver-winning 2018 Asian Games team as well as a member of the gold-winning 2017 Asia Cup team. Vandana was instrumental in India winning a bronze at the 2013 Junior World Cup at Monchengladbach (she scored in the quarterfinal against Spain) – where she was the country’s top goal-scorer with 5 goals.

Vandana’s passion for hockey was spotted by Meerut-based coach Pradeep Chinyoti who took her under his wings and subsequently she shifted to the Lucknow Sports Hostel in 2005, where she honed her hockey skills under coaches Poonam Lata Raj and Vishnu Sharma. It was during her hostel stint that Vandana grew rapidly through the ranks and received her maiden national call-up for the Indian Junior Team and later for the Senior team.

Lucknow Sports Hostel coach Poonam Lata Raj, under whom Vandana honed her hockey skills since 2005, is overwhelmed with emotion on her ward calling it quits “Vandana spoke to me recently and she keeps talking to me from time and time whenever she needs suggestion or make any decision. She was getting the feeling that she is not getting adequate match time and wanted to take a call on her playing career. I told her she can be super proud of what she has achieved for the national side and her longevity is a testament to that, and she must take a decision that keeps her happy – after all, players have to call it a day at some point of time,” she says in a chat with Hockey Passion.

Poonam, who had first had a glimpse of the 13-year-old at the Lucknow Sports Hostel, feels that Vandana must look forward to the next chapter of her life with excitement. “I have been telling her to settle down (get married) – she said her mother has been asking her the same. Her elder sister Reena Katariya whom I also coached in 2005 alongside Vandana is married, and plays for Indian Railways,” she says.

Vandana Katariya’s childhood coach at Lucknow Sports Hostel, Poonam Lata Raj (from left)

According to Poonam, Vandana was super talented as a kid in the Lucknow Sports Hostel. “The first impression I had about her was that she was different from others, in terms of talent – she was ahead of the trainees skill-wise. There is not a single practice game in which Vandana won’t score during her hostel days. She impressed us with her ball speed and footwork. Vandana has the ability to weave her way a crowded defence in the ‘D’ and score.,” she gushes.

Vandana’s childhood coach believes her ward can actively play in the domestic circuit. “Vandana is one of the fittest players in the Indian women’s team – she can continue playing domestic hockey for her employers Indian Railways or for Uttarkhand even while explore options of getting married. She has a great servant of Indian women’s hockey for sixteen years and I want her to be happy at all times,” she says.

The eye-popping stickwork, crafty runs inside the ‘D’, her smart indirect penalty corner deflections and clinical finishing would be etched in memories for a long, long, time to come.