Mission Indonesia

The Bangladesh national hockey team will fly to South Korea tonight for their final phase of preparations ahead of the Asian Games, with the intention to gauge their performance after training for the past two weeks at home following poor results in their tour of India.

During the first phase of preparations from June 29 to July 6 in India, Bangladesh lost all six of their matches against the Indian Junior and India A teams. Malaysian coach Iman Gobinathan Krishnamurti has made three changes to that 18-member squad with Arshad Hossain, Shohanur Rahman Sabuj and Kamruzzaman Rana coming in place of Hasan Juabir Niloy, Mahbub Hossain and Rimon for the five practice matches against their South Korean counterparts on July 26, 27, 29, 30 and 31. The team will then return home on August 2.

“We made some mistakes and showed fundamental weaknesses during the six practice matches in India. Then we came back home to rectify those in training and now we want to see what improvement we've made when we train in South Korea through five practice matches,” said Gobinathan before a training session at the Maulana Bhasani Hockey Stadium yesterday.

The Malaysian coach is keen to see what developments have been made, in comparison to their India tour, when they play in South Korea and also feels that his charges will benefit from a few more practice matches.

“The tour of South Korea is very important for us because when you play practice matches, you learn something new, find out your weaknesses and again go to another practice match, where you can see if there is any improvement,” said the former Malaysian international.

The tours of India and South Korea were arranged as a part of their preparations for next month's Asian Games. Bangladesh finished eighth in the 2014 edition but the boys in red and green had quite a good result in last year's Asia Cup at home.

And so, Gobinathan wants to carry over their sixth place finish in the Asia Cup into the Asian Games as well.

“The target is to win matches against teams ranked below Bangladesh and give very good fights to the higher ranked sides such as Pakistan and Malaysia. If we can go up two ranks from our present standing [8th] in the Asian Games, then it will be an improvement for Bangladesh,” said Gobinathan, who believes that the match against Oman will be a tough one.

“I think we are ready but Oman is a good team that spends a lot of money on training and have been in Holland for one month for preparations and practice matches. The boys must be brave on the day they play Oman because it is a very important match for us. Oman now have the upper hand as they beat Bangladesh many times in the recent past. However, after the practice matches in India, I think the boys are now a bit braver and are ready to do what they are supposed to do against them. But it will be tough and 50-50 match for Bangladesh,” Gobinathan added.

In fast-paced hockey matches, penalty corners can still be the turning point for any side and Gobinathan believes his charges have improved in that area.

“We got eight to nine penalty corners in India and converted five of them. We have improved every day in penalty-corner attacks because we have good flickers like Ashraful Islam, Khorshedur Rahman and Mamunur Rahman Chayan, who can flick the ball anywhere into the net. But the big problem at the moment is the stopper and injector. Once we settle our stopping and pushing, it will be a big strength for Bangladesh,” said the Malaysian.