A century of sporting ties: The 1926 hockey tour that began it all

The first New Zealand Women’s team to travel internationally (Image supplied: Hockey New Zealand)

Hockey continued to be the conduit for sporting contact over the 1930s with an Indian national side coming to tour New Zealand in 1935. Indian hockey ruled supreme at the time – winning gold medals at the 1928, 1932 and 1936 Olympic Games. (It is estimated 2 million people were playing hockey in India in 1936, a country that at the time included present-day Pakistan and Bangladesh.) India won all 28 games and beat New Zealand 3–0 in the test series. India was complimentary about the quality of New Zealand play but less so about the quality of the fields. 

A year later, the India side were again crowned Olympic champions, winning gold at the 1936 Berlin Games after beating Germany 8–1 in the final. 

According to Selwyn Maister, a member of New Zealand’s 1976 Montreal Olympic gold medal team and a hockey historian, “Dhyan Chand is supposed to have said ‘had the New Zealand men’s team gone to Berlin they probably would have got second’. He really rated them.”  

Following the success of the 1935 tour, another Indian team toured in 1938, albeit not an official international one. The Prince of Manavadar’s team played 31 games in two and a half months. The team also played two cricket games – quite likely the first cricket matches between the two nations at any level – taking on Flaxmere Cricket Club in Hastings and an Auckland XI made up of local hockey players. This was still 20 years before New Zealand was to play India in an official cricket test. 

The New Zealand Hockey Team vs Prince of Manavadar (a princely state in Gujarat) at the Basin Reserve (Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

The touring Indian hockey teams of 1926 and 1935 not only proved a great boon for the sport in New Zealand, they were also a source of inspiration for New Zealand-based Indians and New Zealanders of Indian heritage.  

The tours led to the formation of Indian sports clubs – the first in Wellington in 1935, followed by similar organisations in Auckland and Christchurch in 1936. 

Over the following decades other regions followed suit, with a national body, the New Zealand Indian Sports Association, established in 1962. 

 Ramesh Patel was the first New Zealander of Indian heritage to play hockey for New Zealand, making his international debut in 1973 and going on to play 126 games for the Black Sticks. He was a member of the 1976 Olympic gold medal winning side and went on to become the chief executive of Hockey New Zealand. 

The first New Zealand Indian hockey team (Image supplied: Alexander Turnbull Library)

Ramesh remembers his parents, who had emigrated to New Zealand from the Gujarat region of India, discussing the touring Indian sides of the 1920s and 1930s.“When the first Indian migrants came here, [New Zealand] probably wasn’t that welcoming to be fair. Then those Indian tours started in 1926 …and it broke the ice a little bit.” 

“The way the Indian teams handled themselves and definitely the way that they played with such wizardry – it fascinated the crowds and I’m sure the population of New Zealand suddenly thought these [guys] are not a bad team,” he recalls. 

“[The way the Indian side conducted themselves] probably made the Indians that had migrated here earlier feel a little bit better about themselves and encouraged them to play hockey.” 

Patel says the way the early touring sides from India played the game still resonates in New Zealand hockey today with the Black Sticks playing a short passing game similar to India. 

The Second World War limited sporting contact for the first half of the decade. In 1945, the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force hockey side, made up of New Zealand servicemen, toured India and became the first New Zealand team to play in the sub-continent. The team played 30 games all up, winning 19 and losing 11. 

The 1950s also saw the New Zealand and Indian women’s hockey sides meet for the first time. In 1956, the New Zealand women’s hockey team competed at the International Federation of Women’s Hockey Association tournament in Sydney – the forerunner to the World Cup. It was just the second time New Zealand had competed and marked the first time the New Zealand and Indian women’s sides had squared off in a test match. New Zealand finished third, beating India 2–0 in their third game of the tournament.  

The New Zealand men's team that won Olympic gold in 1976

New Zealand hockey’s greatest moment to date came two years later at the 1976 Montreal Olympics when against all odds the New Zealand side won Olympic gold, beating arch-rivals Australia 1–0 in the final.  

New Zealand and India’s paths didn’t cross during the tournament, but New Zealand did play two games against the reigning world champions in the lead up, both of which New Zealand lost. Yet those matches were seen as crucial in New Zealand’s subsequent Olympic success.  

Patel believes hockey, rather than cricket, saw a greater number of players of Indian descent participating during the 1960s, 70s and 80s because of those early tours, but also work commitments. 

“When they moved to New Zealand finding work wasn’t easy and there was not a lot of free time so hockey fitted into that on Saturday afternoon ... it didn’t take as much time to play as cricket and so I think that was the reason why hockey was favoured in those earlier years. It’s a lot different now.”  

Sports historian and associate professor at Massey University, Geoff Watson, believes the impact of India on New Zealand’s hockey development – and ultimately the success at the 1976 Montreal Olympics – is not well known by those outside of hockey circles. 

“It’s really interesting reading the newspaper reports of 1926, 1935 and 1938 tours and the emphasis on the fantastically skilled players they had, like Dhyan Chand. But it was the team game they played, the accuracy of the passing, the fact that they were using back passes, which was something a lot of New Zealand hockey teams weren’t using.” 

“When I was playing, even in the 70s and 80s, [back passing] was looked on a little bit askance,” he says. “And so that sort of game had a huge influence on people like [legendary coach] Cyril Walter, who … very much adopted and preached the Indian style of play, which became the dominant style of play for Canterbury. The players he coached then went on to be hugely influential in the 76 Olympic team.” 

Almost 20 years after their first international encounter, the New Zealand and Indian women’s hockey sides met for just the second time at an international tournament in Scotland in 1975. New Zealand won the match in Edinburgh 6–1 and finished third at the IFWHA tournament. 

The two sides met again in 1979 at the IFWHA tournament in Vancouver, Canada, with New Zealand winning 4–1.  

In 1983 the Indian men’s hockey team toured New Zealand with the hosts beating India for the first time in a test series. Just two tests were played with New Zealand winning the first in Whangārei 3–0, while the second in Auckland was drawn 2–2. 

New Zealand and India met regularly during the 1980s at the Champions Trophy and Olympics in several tight fought encounters – it was a similar story through the 1990s.  

The strength of Indian men’s hockey in New Zealand was on display in 1983 when the New Zealand India Sports Association played its first game against an Indian Hockey Federation National Men’s team at Mount Smart Stadium in Auckland. The visitors won that match 2–0.  

The 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur marked the first time hockey was included on the programme – and New Zealand had hopes of finishing with a medal in both the men’s and women’s competitions. 

The men came up against India in the bronze medal match and while the scores were locked at 1–1 at halftime, India had much the better of the second half going on to make the podium with a 3–1 victory. 

New Zealand and India also squared off for the bronze medal in the women’s event, with the Black Sticks comfortably winning 3–0. 

The New Zealand women faced India in the bronze-medal match at the 1998 Commonwealth Games, winning 3–0

The Commonwealth Games hockey rivalry resumed in Manchester in 2002 with the two nations facing each other in the semi-finals of the women’s competition.

Late in the match there was controversy with the scores locked at one-all. The umpire awarded India a penalty stroke with 10 minutes to play but then extraordinarily refused to let India take it, ruling they had ignored the instruction to take the shot.

This only fired up the Indian side who scored in the dying minutes to win 2–1 and advance to the final where they beat England to win gold. New Zealand finished fourth, losing to Australia in the bronze medal playoff. The New Zealand men’s team took home silver that year but did not face India in any of their games. 

India inflicted more Games misery on the New Zealand women’s team four years later in Melbourne in 2006. The Black Sticks lost to India 1–0 in the semi-final, with India advancing to the final and finishing second while New Zealand again finished fourth. 

In Delhi 2010 the Indian men’s hockey team won silver and the New Zealand bronze, while in the women’s tournament New Zealand took home silver. 

The hockey tussles at the Commonwealth Games continued in 2014. The Indian men’s team denied New Zealand a chance to play off for the gold medal when they came back from 2–0 down to win the semi-final 3–2. India won silver and New Zealand finished fourth. 

At the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, the New Zealand women’s hockey team reigned supreme, winning gold. The New Zealand men’s team turned the tables on India from four years prior with a 3–2 semi-final win. The team went on to win silver, while India took fourth place. 

In 2022, at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games, India had the better of the hockey. The Indian men’s side won silver while the Indian women’s team won bronze, beating New Zealand in a penalty shootout to claim third. 

While the New Zealand men’s hockey team has had a strong representation of players of Indian heritage over the past five decades, it wasn’t until 2003 that a female player of Indian heritage – Priya Bhikha – made the New Zealand side. 

Priya Bhikha playing for Wellington at the New Zealand National Hockey Stadium

Born and raised in Wellington, Bhikha’s grandparents came to New Zealand from Gujarat. She is, understandably, incredibly proud of being the first woman of Indian heritage to play for the Black Sticks. “I probably value it more now ...[just] how rare it still is. I still get emotional even now, I sort of will tear up, thinking about it and talking to you about it.”  

“One of the benefits of being in the Indian community or being of Indian descent in New Zealand is I feel like I grew up with just this huge, huge community behind me,” she says. 

“Family and extended family and family friends and the [Indian] sports club community and the wider Indian community who all wished me well and supported me, coached me and took me to trainings or just called me to come and have a hit.

“So, it kind of felt for me like it wasn’t just mine… it was my parents and our families and the extended family and the community at large that I was representing. The people who had got me there.” 

But why did it take so long for a woman of Indian heritage to make it into the Black Sticks given the strong Indian male representation in the men’s national side? 

Bhikha puts that down, at least in part, to traditional Indian culture. 

“There was quite a stark difference, in my opinion, in gender roles,” she explains. “I grew up knowing all about the talented male players and Olympians of Indian descent.

“My dad was obviously able to go and play hockey as much or as little as he wanted whereas mum, on the other hand, wasn’t allowed to play unless all the chores were done, like the cooking, the cleaning and the housework. 

“And a lot of her friends weren’t allowed to play at all, purely because they were female and their parents kind of viewed their roles as being in the home and domestic and that they shouldn’t be playing sport.” 

Bhikha is grateful for her parents’ less traditional approach. “My parents didn’t raise me like that so by stark contrast, I was encouraged to follow my dreams and do whatever it was I wanted to do …Looking back mum probably still kept towing the load at home … so that I could do the things that I wanted to do.

“I’ve become more aware of it as I’ve gotten older and become a mother and reflected. 

“When I was growing up, you know, I just felt like a normal, you know, kind of Kiwi kid, because there were no gender roles forced on me by my parents …So I just grew up probably quite oblivious … but we never really spoke about it a lot either.

Bhikha is undoubtedly a trailblazer but perhaps only accepts the mantle when she ponders her achievements. 

“It is important to younger girls and men that this is something women can do,” she says. 

“When I talk to younger girls, they are like, ‘Wow, you played for New Zealand that’s so amazing’ and will ask questions.” 

The New Zealand and Indian women's teams at the 2026 Nations Cup

A hundred years on from the arrival of the Indian Army team in 1926, hockey remains one of the most enduring threads in the sporting relationship between New Zealand and India. 

What began as a pioneering tour that introduced New Zealanders to a new style of play evolved into something far greater, inspiring generations of players, fostering New Zealand’s Indian sporting community, and forging connections that stretched well beyond the hockey field.  

Few sporting relationships can trace their origins back 100 years – from Dhyan Chand’s artistry and New Zealand’s Olympic triumph in Montreal, to Priya Bhikha breaking new ground for women of Indian heritage. As the two countries look toward the next 100 years of sporting ties it is fitting to remember hockey was where it all began.