Asian Games 2018 | Defending champions India vanquish Bangladesh 7-1 in first warm-up game
The Indian men’s hockey team has thrashed Bangladesh 7-1 in a warm-up game to enter the Asian Games on a positive note. India, who were the champions in the last edition in 2014 at Incheon, are aiming to defend the title in order to gain the momentum before the year-end World Cup at home.
India got the much-needed confidence booster to defend their Asiad title after a 7-1 victory against Bangladesh in a practice match on Friday. As a result, chief coach Harendra Singh and skipper PR Sreejesh expressed their desire to win a second successive gold medal as it would directly secure the team a berth in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Coach Harendra said that in the last few years this Indian team has proved to the world that they are back in the arena to become the best. He expressed his desire to take the team up in the rankings ladder to top-3 by the end of the year.
“In the last couple of years, we have proved to the world that India is back on the hockey map. We are number five in the world at the moment but by the end of the year we want to be in top 3 in the world,” Harendra said.
While there was plenty to cheer about for the Indians on the field, the situation was not exactly the same for skipper Sreejesh, who hoped for the situation (unprecedented flood) to get better in Kerala (his native place).
