The team's breakthrough performance came at the
Women's Hockey World Cup at
Mandelieu in 1974, where it finished in 4th place. Their best performance in the
Olympic Games was at
1980 Moscow Summer Olympics (where they came in 4th), when a
women's event was held for the first time in Olympic history. The team also won the
Gold medal at the inaugural
1982 Asian Games held in
New Delhi, defeating
Korea in the finals. Captain
Suraj Lata Devi led the team to the
Gold for three consecutive years at different events- during the
2002 Commonwealth Games, the 2003
Afro-Asian Games, and the
2004 Women's Hockey Asia Cup. Team members were referred to as the "assi (Jasjeet) jaisi koi nahi" or the "Golden Girls of Hockey," after the 2004 win.
The 2002 Commonwealth Games Squad, led by Captain
Suraj Lata Devi, competed in the
2002 Commonwealth Games. The team entered the finals after defeating the New Zealand women's national field hockey team. and placed first, winning the Gold after they beat
the English women's hockey team. This event served as the inspiration for the 2007
Bollywood film about women's field hockey,
Chak De! India starring
Shah Rukh Khan (after screenwriter
Jaideep Sahni read a short article about it). Sahni began to model the character of Kabir Khan on hockey coach
Maharaj Krishan Kaushik. After hearing the storyline, Kaushik suggested that Sahni meet hockey player
Mir Ranjan Negi (who faced accusations of throwing the match against Pakistan during the
1982 Asian Games). Sahni has stated that he was unaware of Negi's tribulations while writing the script and that the resemblance with Negi's life was entirely coincidental. Negi affirmed this point stating that he didn't "want to hog the limelight. This movie is not a documentary of Mir Ranjan Negi's life. It is in fact the story of a team that becomes a winning lot from a bunch of hopeless girls" In response to the fact that the media equated Kabir Khan with Negi, Sahni said that "Our script was written a year and a half back. It is very unfortunate that something, which is about women athletes, has just started becoming about Negi." At the
2014 Commonwealth Games, it finished in 5th place but at
2014 Asian Games,
Incheon stunned
Japan 2–1 in a tight match to clinch their third
bronze medal at the
Asian Games. During the summer of 2015, the team hosted the
Round 2 of the
2014–15 Women's FIH Hockey World League and finished on top to qualify for the next stage. At the
World League Semi-finals held in
Antwerp the team finished in the fifth place beating higher ranked Japan in classification match. The
Indian woman's national field hockey team qualified for the
2016 Summer Olympics for the first time since the
1980 Summer Olympics. They were eliminated in the group stage, however, where
they placed 6th. India at the
2020 Summer Olympics for the first time ever, reached the semi-final in the Women's Hockey Olympic event but failed to bag any medal after they lost to
Argentina in the semi-final and then to
Great Britain in the bronze medal match. Following their performance at the Olympics, the team went to win bronze medals at the 2022
Asia Cup and the
Commonwealth Games and a third-place finish in the
2021–22 Pro League. In 2022 India won the
first ever FIH Women's Nations Cup. However, they failed to qualify for the Paris Olympics losing to Japan in the bronze medal match at the Olympic Qualifier in Ranchi on 19 January 2024. ==Performance record==