Bangladesh take on Taipei today

After smiting Hong Kong 4-2 in their opening match, defending champions Bangladesh could grab the pole position of Pool A with a win against Chinese Taipei in their 5th Men's AHF Cup fixture today.

Bangladesh and Taipei are tied on three points after playing one match apiece, hence a win today's encounter, which is set to kick off at 4:00pm Bangladesh time in Hong Kong's King's Park Stadium, would ensure the men in red and green the pole position.

The team's adviser coach, Peter Gerhard Rach hopes Bangladesh romp past the opposition even though there are sufficient opportunities to consider the group phase matches as a platform to fine-tune the side. “I'm very optimistic that we will overcome any difficulties we had in the first match. With the formation of the tournament, you can afford to lose all the three group matches because the tournament will start in earnest in the semifinals. So we can still try and find our way and we can try certain things,” the former coach of the national team told reporters after a practice session at the match venue yesterday.

Midfielder Krishna Kumar, cited the lack of opportunities to practice on the match turf as a possible reason for the unconvincing nature behind the win against Hong Kong and expressed that they found it a bit difficult to adjust to the surface due to that.

“We could have got used to the turf had we had a practice here previously. But after today's practice, we have hopefully covered some ground. We will definitely win against Chinese Taipei and will improve day by day,” Krishna said hopingly.