Asian Hockey Champions Trophy: New Cycle Starts As Indian Men’s Team Takes On Korea

Olympic bronze medallist Indian men’s hockey team will start out its new cycle with a bunch of youngsters aiming to verify their mettle when it begins its Asian Champions Trophy campaign from Korea on Tuesday. India have gained the event thrice since its inception in 2011 and have gained the former two editions held in 2016 in Kuantan, Malaysia and 2018 in Muscat, Oman. India will enjoy their opening match from Korea on December fourteen, followed by their match from hosts Bangladesh the upcoming day (December fifteen).

Their 3rd match will be from arch-rivals Pakistan on December 17 and on December 19, they just take on Asian Games champions Japan. The semi-finals and final will be held on December 21 and 22 respectively.

Skipper Manpreet Singh emphasised on finding off to a great start out.

“Korea is a great team and are very able of slowing down our attack. In this very same venue in the course of the Asia Cup in 2017, we experienced drawn (1-1) from them in the league phase. Hence, it is really crucial we will not get complacent from them and assure our fundamentals are proper when we enjoy them tomorrow,” he reported.

Talking about the great importance of the match, Manpreet reported, “The match is rather an crucial one for us as it is our very first match soon after the Tokyo Olympics. The new cycle has started out for us. If we start out effectively, then our self-confidence concentrations will go higher,” he reported.

Many youngsters have been provided a likelihood in the India squad for the match, and Manpreet went on to demonstrate why executing effectively for them in this article will be critical.

“Youngsters have been provided a likelihood to be a element of the squad mainly because some of them ended up not able to get a likelihood in excess of the earlier two several years as the aim was on the main team planning for the Olympics. The youngsters have been doing work tough for rather a whilst, and for this reason, they have been provided a likelihood to verify by themselves,” he added.

Talking on the team’s health and fitness concentrations ahead of the start out of the match, the Indian skipper reported: “We are in rather great condition. We centered a lot on our health and fitness at the latest camp in Bhubaneswar.

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“We are hunting ahead to see how the other Asian groups have formed up in excess of these earlier two several years. The match will be a great check for our squad,” he signed off.

In the former version of this event held in Muscat, India experienced jointly lifted the title alongside with Pakistan as the final was identified as off thanks to incessant rains.