Dhaka: The Indian men’s hockey team to take on Bangladesh in their second match of the tournament at 15:00 IST on Wednesday. However, it will not be an easy one for them as the Men in Blue had suffered a setback to their title defense as the opener ended in a stalemate against Korea 2-2.
The defending champs have a lot of leeways to maneuver in today’s encounter. Their first course of action would be to return to the drawing board and fill up all of the flaws in their encounter versus Korea.
India had created several opportunities in the previous encounter, but they were unable to capitalize on them owing to their poor finish. They also need to improve their defence, as they began off well, but Korea took advantage of Manpreet Singh’s side’s weak defence in the third and fourth quarters.
”Korea were really good today with their defense and their goalkeeper was quite outstanding,” he said. “We expected them to give us a hard time and hence it was important we started well. But we couldn’t keep up that momentum going into the third and fourth quarter. Nonetheless, this was the first match of the tournament and we will surely bounce back against Bangladesh,” said skipper Manpreet post the India vs Korea match.
India’s third encounter, just after matches against Korea and Bangladesh, will be against arch-rival Pakistan on December 17. Two days later, they face Asian Games winner Japan.
The match will be broadcast live on the Star Sports Network – Star Sports 1 and Star Sports Select 2 (both SD and HD) channels. Fans can also live stream the India vs Bangladesh match on Hotstar.
