‘The biggest hockey event in Bangladesh’ kicks off today

Asian Champions Trophy, the most prestigious hockey tournament of the continent, will kick off at the Maulana Bhashani Hockey Stadium in Dhaka today.

This is the first time in its sixth edition that Bangladesh will host the prestigious event and will also be a part of it.

Bangladesh, the lowest-ranked side in the five-team tournament, will play their first match against joint-defending champions  India tomorrow. The opening day, though, will feature South Korea against India at 3:30pm followed by Japan against Pakistan at 6:00pm.

All the matches of the tournament -- scheduled to end on December 22 -- will be telecast live on Star Sports Network.

The trophy for the tournament was unveiled at the match venue in presence of all five team captains and organisers.

All the teams, except for the hosts, expressed their desire to lift the title.

India and Pakistan have won the title three times each, the two neighbours jointly lifting the trophy in the last edition in 2018 after heavy rain forced cancellation of the final.

This time, though, India are the overwhelming favourites as they come into the tournament on the back of a bronze medal in Tokyo Olympics and third position on the latest world rankings.

India captain Manpreet Singh, while talking at the trophy unveiling, said that they were happy to be here and had prepared well to pose a challenge for the title.

Bangladesh captain Ashraful Islam, though, was more realistic about the team's ambition and expectations.

Following the Asian Games in 2018, Bangladesh have not played an international match, in the process dropping to 38th position in world ranking from the late 20s.

"We have played two practice matches before this tournament which will help us have some idea about how to play against these top teams,"Ashraful said.

"India are the bronze-medallists from the Olympics. The other teams, too, are very good. We will try to compete with each team according to our ability," the Bangladesh captain added.

Meanwhile, Asian Hockey Federation CEO Tayeb Ikram was happy to see the event finally roll on the field after the pandemic had thrice forced its deferment from the original schedule of early 2020.

"After two years of fight against Covid, we have the top teams here. It is very very important to bring our heroes, our athletes to the field. It is unfortunate that Malaysia couldn't come due to Covid issues, but that won't impact the tournament," Tayeb said.

Bangladesh Hockey Federation's vice-president Abdur Rashid Shikdar said that this is a great opportunity for our players to rub shoulders against top athletes.

"We hosted the Asia Cup twice, but this one is by far the biggest hockey event for Bangladesh. In the Asia Cup, we don't get to play against all the teams, which we will get here. So this is a great opportunity for our team to improve themselves," Shikdar said.