The Indian men’s hockey team will continue to apply the tactical changes which it introduced recently during the Asian Champions Trophy beginning here on Thursday, chief coach Craig Fulton said. Fulton said the hosts will use the August 3-12 tournament to be played at the Mayor Radhakrishnan Stadium as a platform to prepare for the upcoming Asian Games in Hangzhou, China.
“We made some tactical changes in our game in our recent games and now we will aim to implement those in the Asian Champions Trophy,” Fulton said after the Indian team’s arrival here on Tuesday.
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“I think we did really well in our recently concluded four-nation tournament in Spain. We faced some really good opponents in the past 10 days and performed well against them. We have started playing the way we like to play.” India finished third in the 100th anniversary Spanish Hockey Federation international tournament in Terrassa. The team beat reigning FIH Pro League champions Netherlands 2-1 in the third-fourth play-off match on Sunday.
“We will use this tournament (Asian Champions Trophy) as a platform to prepare for the upcoming Asian Games,” the chief coach said. Japan, Korea, Pakistan, China and Malaysia are the other five teams in the tournament. All the six teams will each play five matches in the round-robin stage before the top four move into the semifinals.
India will open their campaign against China on Thursday. India and Pakistan are the most successful teams in the tournament with titles each. Vice-captain Hardik Singh said his team will need to remain “switched on” throughout every match.
“We need to control the tempo of the game and need to be switched on from the word go so that we can begin a game on a positive note,” said Hardik. “Each team participating in the competition presents a formidable challenge, being of good quality. Consequently, our approach shall be to prepare diligently for every encounter, offering nothing less than our utmost efforts,” he added.
“We performed well in Spain, especially in the last couple of games which included the 2-1 win against the Netherlands.” Captain Harmanpreet Singh stressed that next couple of months a re crucial for the India team.
“The next two months are very important for us. At the Asian Champions Trophy, we have this opportunity of playing quality matches before the Hangzhou Asian Games,” Harmanpreet said.
“It will be a good experience for the players. We have to make sure that we execute our strategies that we have worked on and I am sure that the tournament will be helpful for the players,” the skipper added. India, Malaysia, Japan and Korea have already arrived here. Pakistan and China are scheduled to arrive later on Tuesday for the ACT.
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