Star Sports to broadcast Asia Cup Hockey starting August 24

Asia Cup Hockey is to be aired with
Hindi commentary along with English

Here is the big news for Hockey fans. 9th men’s Asia Cup hockey tournament to be played at Ipoh, Malaysia from August 24 to September 1 will be shown live on Star Sports, Star Sports 2 and ESPN HD with Hindi commentary along with English. Pre-match and post-match shows will be available in Hindi only. 

The sportscaster will also telecast 30 minutes pre-tournament build-up shows in Hindi across the Star Sports Network starting August 19 at 10:00 PM. Star Sports is trying to build a non-cricket viewership to reduce its dependency on cricket.

India will play its first match against Oman on August 24 at 1:30 PM, followed by matches against Korea on August 26 and Bangladesh on August 28.

The repeated non-telecast of Indian Hockey is a cause of dipping popularity of the national sport. Only 3 international Hockey tournaments have been aired so far in 2013. The Hockey World League Round 2 and 3 events were shown live on Ten Sports and Sultan Azlan Shah  Cup held in Malaysia on Neo Sports. Pakistan Hockey team’s tour of India was canceled in March after Indian government refused permission for a home-and-away bilateral hockey series between the two countries on security grounds.

The road to the semifinals should not be much of a problem for the Indians as India is placed in a relatively easy Pool B with Korea, Bangladesh and Oman. Pakistan, Malaysia, Japan and Chinese-Taipei complete the Pool A line-up.

The Asia Cup winner will qualify for the 2014 World Cup to be played at The Hague, Netherlands.

For the eight-time Olympic champion India and neighbors Pakistan, the Asia Cup is a do or die tournament as one of them faces the prospect of missing out on a World Cup berth for the first time since the launch of the Hockey World Cup in 1971.

The 18 member and relatively inexperienced squad will be captained by midfielder Sardar Singh under interim coach Roelant Oltmans while goalkeeper P R Sreejesh will be the Vice-Captain.  Four key strikers Danish Mujtaba, SV Sunil, Gurwinder Singh Chandi and Akashdeep Singh were ruled out of the tournament due to injuries. In Ramandeep Singh and Nikin Thimmaiah, the Indian forwardline has two debutants. Defender Amit Rohidas is the another debutant in the Asia Cup team. Mandeep Singh, Nithin Thimmaiah and Malak Singh who came into limelight during Hockey India League too do not have much experience.