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The Men’s Asian Championship Trophy that will be held in Dhaka, Bangladesh is going to be postponed from its original date in October to December, as announced by the Bangladesh Hockey Federation (BHF).
BHF told Times Of India, through the mail, that the competition has been postponed and it will now be scheduled to commence from the 12th of December 2021.
This decision was always supposed to happen as the COVID-19 situation in the subcontinent is far from satisfactory. Many travel restrictions and quarantine requirements are still in place in most of the countries and hence the logistics of hosting a multi-team event, during this time, in this region will be a nightmare for anyone to pull off. Papers also tried to contact the Asian Hockey Federation CEO Tayyab Ikram for any comment regarding the delay but neither could they reach him nor got a reply from the official.
The tournament was originally scheduled to commence on the 1st of October and end on the 9th of October but now, according to the communication sent by the BHF, the tournament is getting shifted by two months to December 12th. This can also lead to the Women’s Champions Trophy getting delayed but this is all speculation now, based on what has been said by BHF. There has been no official confirmation, as such, by anyone.
The Women’s Champions Trophy is supposed to start from the 24th of October and end on the 31st and will be hosted by the city of Donghae, South Korea. The defending champions in the men’s tournament are Australia who defeated India through a penalty shootout. In the women’s, the defending champs are the Netherlands who blanked Australia 5-1.
