Dhaka: Farhat Khan, the head coach of the Pakistan national hockey team has lavished praise on the Indian hockey team on Thursday, calling it the ‘toughest team on paper’ ahead of the two nation’s Asia Cup clash next month in Bangladesh.
Pakistan and India are part of the same group (Group A) that also consists Japan and the host nation Bangladesh.
“There is tough competition among the participating Asian teams with India being the strongest on paper with a world ranking of 6,” Farhat said while assessing the strength of the various teams, according to a report in The Times of India.
“But there are always teams, who can spring a surprise as Malaysia showed by finishing fourth at the Hockey World League Semi-Final in London. Therefore, it is important for us to keep focus on our game as we want to win the tournament,” he added.
Pakistan are set to face hosts Bangladesh in their opening match of the tournament on October 11 before taking on Japan and India on the 13th and 15th of October respectively.
The team has been not performing up to their expectations in the recent years as they have failed to win big tournaments. Their recent poor showing was in the disappointing campaign of the Hockey World League semi-finals this year, where the team finished in the seventh place.
Aware of the poor performances from the boys, the head coach pointed out, “We will need to make improvement in all areas of our game if we want to achieve our goal this time. We have faced a tough time in recent years as we failed to qualify for the last World Cup, and then 2016 Olympic Games, therefore we want to deliver our best starting from Hero Asia Cup 2017,” Farhat stated.
Pakistan will go into the Asia Cup as one of the title-contenders. They are also the second most crowned champions in the history of the Asia Cup with three wins and are behind South Korea, who have won the tournament four times.
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