India will be eyeing their record 4th Asian Champions Trophy when they take on Japan in the second semifinal.
After high-octane clashes in the league stage, the Asian Hockey Champions Trophy is at the business end of the tournament. India, Japan, Malaysia, and defending champions Korea qualified for the semifinals. The semifinals will take place on Friday (August 11) at Mayor Radhakrishnan Stadium in Chennai. India will be eyeing their record 4th Asian Champions Trophy when they take on Japan in the second semifinal. Meanwhile, Malaysia will lock horns with defending champions Korea in the first semifinal.
India and Japan have a long history of rivalry in international hockey. It dates back to the 1932 Olympic Games. Both teams have faced each other 34 times so far. Out of these matches, India has emerged as the dominant team. The men in blue have won 27 times while Japan have managed only three wins. Additionally, the two teams have played four drawn matches. Interestingly, Japan is the only team that India has failed to defeat in the ongoing Asian Champions Trophy league stage. In the latest encounter, the two teams battled it out to a 1-1 draw. This shows the competitiveness of the Japanese team against the hosts. Although the previous encounters are more tilted towards India yet Harmanpreet Singh’s side will not find it easy against the Japanese team.
The Asian Champions Trophy 2023 is being conducted in two phases – a group stage where all six teams play each other in a single-legged round-robin format followed by the knockout/classification stage. After the group stage is over, the top four teams make the semi-finals while the bottom two play in the fifth-place classification match. The two semi-final winners move on to the final on August 12 while the two losing teams play each other in the third-place playoff match. The Indian men’s hockey team ranked fourth in the world, and world No. 16 Pakistan are the joint most-successful teams at the Asian Champions Trophy with three titles each. South Korea defeated Japan to win the last edition of the Asian Champions Trophy hockey hosted by Bangladesh in 2021.
| Schedule (11.08.23) | Timings (IST) |
| Malaysia vs South Korea | 6:00 |
| India vs Japan | 8:30 |
The 2023 Asian Champions Trophy for Mens starts on 3 August and ends on 12 August 2023.
Live streaming of the Asian Champions Trophy 2023 will happen on FanCode. Live broadcasts of the matches of the Asian Champions Trophy will be available on the Star Sports First and Star Sports Select 2 HD TV channels in India.
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