Hockey humiliation

The Bangladesh hockey team endured a terrible start to their Asian Games campaign when they suffered a 0-8 defeat to Japan in the Pool A opener at the Seonhak Hockey Stadium in Incheon, Korea yesterday.

It was Bangladesh's second biggest defeat, after last year's 0-9 defeat against South Korea in the Asia Cup, since Pakistani coach Naveed Alam took charge 13 months ago. 

Prior to the match, Naveed had promised that Bangladesh would perform admirably against Japan, who are 17 places above Bangladesh in the world ranking. However reality was completely different as Bangladesh looked hapless throughout the match, which was a 60-minute affair divided into four sessions.

Japan took the lead in the third minute thanks to a misplaced pass from Bangladesh midfielder Sarwar Hossain and poor keeping by Ashim Gope.

Japan built up the game through the flanks with wingers Nagasawa Katsuyoshi and Sakamoto Hiroki sharing four goals among them while Tanaka Kenta came up with a hattrick to dash Bangladesh's hopes of pulling off a positive result.

After conceding the first two goals within 11 minutes, Bangladesh collapsed in all departments and goalkeeper Ashim Gope, the best performer for Bangladesh during their Asian Games Qualifiers and at the Hockey World League this year, could hardly move from his position while defence and midfield lacked communication and failed to provide anything for striking duo Pushkor Khisha Mimo and Hasan Jubair Niloy.

Bangladesh did win seven penalty corners but failed to capitalise on them, thanks to the brilliance of Japanese goalkeeper Takase Katsuya who foiled three shots from Mamunur Rahman Chayan in same fashion.

The margin could have been even bigger had substitute goalkeeper Abu Sayed Nippon not thwarted two penalty corners and three efforts from open play in the last six minutes of the game.

“It is a totally unexpected result. Conceding three goals within 15 minutes (21 minutes in fact) was the turning point of the game. Our players could not adjust to the turf and four players developed cramps,” explained Naveed after the match.

“It is not a disaster because Japan are ranked 13th in the world. In my opinion, the margin could have been 5-2,” said Naveed.

“Before tomorrow's (Sunday) match against Malaysia, we will be trying to gather as much information about them and I hope we will perform better than today,” said Naveed.