INDIA fritted away the lead twice and had to settle for a 2- 2 draw with New Zealand in their opening match of the Champions Challenge in Salta, Argentina, on Sunday.

India led 1- 0 at half time through a Tushar Khandker strike in the 30th minute. The Indians attacked and forced the Kiwis into defending.

Time and again their forwards ran circles around the rival defence. ‘ India played with constant exchange of positional play with fast turnovers but the defense was shaky at times in the second half.

On the other hand, New Zealand was content to keep the ball in their procession and slow down the pace of the match Still, Phillip Burrows nearly scored on one occasion when his deflection from close range missed the mark by a whisker, much to the relief of the Indians.

India relied more on counter- attacks at that stage and one such move culminated with Khandker sounding the board.

Desperate for the equaliser, New Zealand besieged the Indian goal but Sardar Singh and his colleagues in the Indian defence ensured there was no setback till half time.

The Kiwis were unrelenting even after the break but the Indian defence looked impregnable till the 47th minute when Dean Couzins converted a penalty- stroke, completely wrong- footing goal- keeper D’Souza.

For India, Shivendra Singh nearly scored from the next attack but his deflection from close range hit the post and bounced off. Tushar who was standing nearby, missed a golden chance to latch on the rebound and score.

However, Shivendra made amends in the 51stth minute when he got a similar opportunity and this time he slotted the ball past New Zealand goalkeeper Kyle Pontifex as India regained the lead.

New Zealand, simply refused to throw in the towel and were rewarded for their resilience when Andrew Hayward scored from a penaltycorner in the 58th minite. His powerful grounder brooked no response. Both the teams then went all out for the winner and played attacking brand of hockey but could not breach each other’s defence. Towards the end, Shivendra came close to scoring but his powerful shot just missed the post. In other matches, Argentina spanked South Africa 6- 2, Pakistan edged out Canada 2- 1 and Belgium prevailed over China 4- 3.