The Most Awaited Hockey Continent Tournament to Miss Hockey’s Resurgent Powerhouse -Pakistan

The 12th edition of Hockey Asia cup 2025 is all set to begin from 27 August to 7 September this year in Rajgir, Bihar, India. It will be the first time that newly constructed Rajgir Hockey stadium will host a men hockey tournament. Furthermore, this year, the tournament winner will get the spot in upcoming 2026 FIH hockey world cup that will take place in Netherlands and Belgium. Therefore, world cup qualification makes asia cup more significant as well as more valuable.

Apart from all that, there will be a major missing in Asia cup 2025 as reviving hockey giants Pakistan will miss out the tournament due to security concerns as well as diplomatic tension that lead to this decision. Thus, Pakistan hockey team was replaced by Bangladesh. On the other hand, Oman have too been replaced by Kazakhstan as they will miss the tournament due to some financial issues as they did not receive the necessary funding from their Ministry of Sports,

There will be a total of 8 teams that have been divided into 2 pools of 4 teams each. Pool A have the hosts India, Japan, China and Kazakhstan while on the other hand Pool B have Korea, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Chinese Taipei.

With Pakistan out, India’s road to world cup becomes smoother as Pakistan was looking strong and is on the verge of returning to pro league. That shows Pakistan’s brilliant performance within the last two years, but India can not take the tournament lightly as teams like Japan and South korea has shown the potential to upset big teams and they have proven it hence, they remain serious contender but still, the tournament loses its much of traditional shine due to absence of Pakistan.

Lastly it will be Sony Sports India who will broadcast each match live on their Sony Liv app and On their Sony Sports Channel.

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