‘Happy to perform moderately’
Hosts Bangladesh will not have high expectations to accomplish something special when the girls in red and green start afresh through the inaugural Bangamata Asian Senior Women’s Central Zone International Volleyball Championship at the Surawardi Indoor Stadium in Mirpur tomorrow.
Bangladesh will take on Afghanistan in one of the two opening day fixtures with the five-nation championship turning to the round-robin league format after Turkmenistan pulled out at the last moment.
“We will be really happy if our team can just perform moderately in the championship,” said Bangladesh Volleyball Federation general secretary Ashikur Rahman Miku during a press conference at the BOA Bhaban yesterday.
Explaining why they had low expectations, Miku said: “There were no women’s volleyball activities in the country since 2013 though the women’s volleyball team had previously taken part in international meets such as the South Asian Games. We revived women’s volleyball by forming a women’s committee which reintroduced inter-district volleyball and open tournaments for the girls.”
“This group of girls played an international invitational tournament in Nepal in 2017. Now they have been training for the last three months for this competition. I think this competition will help the girls perform better in the upcoming South Asian Games in Nepal,” he added.
The Uzbekistani Volleyball Central Asian zone general secretary, Kylych, praised Bangladesh for taking a step in the right direction by hosting inaugural tournament for women in the country, just as they had in 2015 by introducing the Asian Senior Men’s Central Zone championship. Kylych went on to say that Bangladesh has played a key role in developing Asian central zone volleyball by hosting four tournaments in the last six years.
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Kyrgyzstan, Maldives and Nepal are participating in the six-day meet.
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