KUALA LUMPUR: The Asian Hockey Federation (AHF) on Friday, unveiled the schedule of the upcoming Asian Hockey Champions Trophy.
As per the statement released by the AHF, the six-team tournament will run from August 3 to 12 in Chennai.
The tournament will begin with Korea and Japan playing the first game, while hosts, India will play the third game of the opening day when they take on China.
The six-team tournament will see Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, Japan, China, and India battle it out for top honours. All the participating teams are placed in one pool and the positions on the points table will be decided by a league system.
Pakistan will start their Asian Hockey Champions Trophy campaign against Malaysia on August 3 before taking on Korea on August 4, Japan on August 6 and China on August 7.
The green shirts will then lock horns with arch-rivals India in their last round fixture on August 9.
The final of the Asian Hockey Champions Trophy will be held on August 12.
Notably, Pakistan and India are the most successful sides of the tournament, having won the title thrice each while Korea will participate in the upcoming edition as the defending champions, who won the previous edition in 2021.
Notably, the training camp of the shortlisted players for the national team to participate in the upcoming edition of the Asian Hockey Champions Trophy is currently underway at National Hockey Stadium, Lahore.
Earlier, the junior national hockey team participated in the Asia Cup where they reached the final.
Pakistan finished as the runners-up of the Junior Hockey Asia Cup after falling to a 1-2 defeat against arch-rivals India in the blockbuster final.
Heading into the blockbuster final, both India and Pakistan were unbeaten in the continental event.
The arch-rivals have so far come face to face in four Junior Hockey Asia Cup finals with India winning on three occasions – 2004, 08 and 23 – while the green shirts emerged victorious once in 1996.
Furthermore, before this year’s tournament both Pakistan were level as the joint-most title-winning sides (3) but India’s latest title victory propelled them to the record title holder of the Asian event.
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