“Grateful that my hard work is paying off,” says youngster Beauty Dungdung after her maiden Indian team call up for the Women’s Nations Cup

The Indian Women’s Hockey team are all set to embark on a new journey as they will feature in the FIH Hockey Women’s Nations Cup which is being held for the first time in 2022. The tournament will be an important part of the hockey calendar because of the new relegation and promotion. The champions of the Nations Cup will be promoted to the FIH Hockey Pro League 2023-24 season cycle.

The Indian team are very hopeful that they can put up a very strong performance in Valencia, Spain as they have selected a very balanced team with plenty of youngsters mixed with veterans. One such name among the young ones caught the eye, it was Beauty Dungdung who was also the part of the Junior Indian team that finished fourth in the FIH Hockey Junior World Cup held in South Africa last year.

Beauty was surprised and happy at the same time as she suggested how much talent that we actually have in our country especially in hockey and she was very grateful to be selected from the training camp. “I am really happy about getting my name into the team. I was not expecting this as there are a lot of good players at the training camp. I was really surprised. I am grateful that my hard work is paying off.”

“It was my dream to get selected for the Indian Senior Women’s Hockey Team. So, I am very happy about this,” she added.
Beauty hails from Simdega district in Jharkhand and from a very young age she was into hockey. Her school used to ask kids to bring their own hockey sticks and her father also played a big role in shaping her up as a hockey player. “Growing up, I received a lot of support from my family to pursue the sport, especially my father who really encouraged me. I learned a lot about the sport from him. Soon, I started playing hockey from the hostel in our region,” she said.

In 2017 she competed in the Sub juniors national before she was invited to compete in the senior district national in 2019. It was a breakthrough year for Beauty as he got into the Indian Junior team that year only.

She shared how she had travelled to different countries representing India and have had opportunities to play in different conditions. She also spoke about the Junior World Cup held in South Africa where she was a very integral part of the Indian Junior Women’s team.

“My first tour with the Junior Women’s team was in 2019 in Ireland. Then, I travelled to Belarus and Australia in the same year. In 2021, I travelled with the team to Chile. And then this year, I received the opportunity to travel for the FIH Hockey Women’s Junior World Cup South Africa 2021, where I learned a lot,” she reminisced.

Lastly she spoke about the importance of the FIH Nations Cup and it’s importance and how the team is having multiple discussions and meetings but the test will be to remember these minute details and apply them on the field. “The FIH Hockey Women’s Nations Cup is crucial to us. We have to win the matches if we have to qualify for the FIH Women’s Hockey Pro League 2022-2023. We’re having a lot of team discussions, and we need to remember these things so we can apply them during the games and get the desired results,” the 19-year-old signed off.