Pakistan open campaign against arch-rivals India

ISLAMABAD: The final edition of the prestigious Men’s Champions Trophy rolls into action in the Dutch city of Breda on Saturday (today) with a mouthwatering clash between arch-rivals Pakistan and India on the opening day.

After finishing a poor seventh in the 10-team XXI Commonwealth Games that did not include six of the world’s top 12 teams, the Pakistan hockey team now faces another stiff challenge in the Champions Trophy.

Pakistan finished behind world’s 23rd ranked Scotland in Gold Coast in a worst ever seventh position in April this year. The team, however, has an opportunity to redeem itself. A good performance in the concluding Champions Trophy will help Pakistan improve their ranking.

Pakistan are the proud winners of the first two editions of the tournament in the late seventies and there would be no better sendoff to the Champions Trophy than to bring it back home.Pakistan have not won the Trophy since 1994, but they came close to victory four years ago in India when Akhtar Rasool was the head of the Pakistan Hockey Federation. The Greenshirts narrowly lost to Germany in the final in front of a hostile Indian crowd.

This time around Pakistan have all the odds in their favour. The team has an experienced foreign coach in Roelant Oltmans, who turned India into one of the world’s top outfits in the last three years. The finance for the current PHF is in abundance as the government in the last three years has doled out record grant to the federation.

Asian champions India will feel that they have a fantastic chance of challenging for the Champions Trophy, a title which, they have never won. They came agonisingly close at the 2016 event in London, finishing runners-up behind Australia thanks to a shootout defeat.

A fourth place finish in the Commonwealth Games triggered a change to the position of head coach, with Harendra Singh taking over and ace goalkeeper PR Sreejesh being named captain of a side that also includes double cap centurions Manpreet Singh, SV Sunil and Sardar Singh.

Thirty-one-year-old Sardar is just two matches away from reaching the milestone of 300 international appearances for India, something which he looks likely to achieve in Breda.

The meeting between Pakistan, the nation that launched the Champions Trophy in 1978, and India, the eight-time Olympic champions, is a fixture that is sure to draw thousands of spectators to the venue as well as millions of fans tuning in from across the world, eagerly anticipating the latest episode of this long-running battle between two of the sport’s most successful nations.Hosts The Netherlands will play Argentina while Australia will take on Belgium in the other two matches on Saturday.