Australia 4 Germany 1

Spain 2 India 1

Pakistan 1 The Netherlands 4

CHENNAI, Dec 10: Olympic gold-medallists Australia and the Netherlands opened their campaigns in field hockey’s Champions Trophy with identical 4-1 victories here on Saturday.

Australia dumped revamped Germany and the Dutch rolled over Pakistan, but defending champions Spain were made to sweat by hosts India before securing a 2-1 win on the first day of the elite six-nation event.

Jamie Dwyer, whose sudden-death goal against the Netherlands in Athens last year gave Australia their first Olympic title, scored two goals in his team’s fluent win over the Germans.

Dwyer and Nathan Eglington made it 2-0 in the first half and Australia added two more goals after the resumption through Dwyer and a penalty stroke by Brent Livermore.

World Cup champions Germany earned a consolation goal through Christopher Zeller.

Spain, who won their first Champions Trophy title in Lahore last year, needed a penalty stroke from Pol Amat in the 49th minute to secure full points against the unfancied Indians.

Eduard Tubau put Spain ahead in the 20th minute goal against the run of play before Kanwalpreet Singh drew level for the hosts 11 minutes later with a stinging penalty corner.

Both teams wasted good opportunities in the second half when Spain earned the lucky break as Santiago Freixa was brought down inside the circle and veteran Amat easily converted the stroke.

The Netherlands dented Pakistan’s confidence with two goals in the first 13 minutes of play that set the tone for the rest of the match.

Ronald Brouwer was the Dutch star, setting up the second goal for Teun de Nooijer and himself scoring the third.

Matthijs Brouwer and Rob Reckers were the others scorers for the Dutch while Mudassar Khan netted one for Pakistan.

“Those early goals set us back,” said Pakistan coach Asif Bajwa. “It was very difficult to come out of that but we know we can do better.”

Pakistan take on arch-rivals India in their second match on Sunday. “It is a very important game because we can’t afford to drop points against India,” Bajwa said.—Agencies