Defending champions Bangladesh will start their campaign in the nine-team Men's  Asian Hockey Federation (AHF) Cup Hockey' 2022 taking on hosts Indonesia in one of the four opening day's match in Jakarta on Friday.

The match will kick off at 8:15 pm.

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The Men's AHF Cup Hockey Tournament, also a qualifying meet of the next Asia Cup Men's Hockey,  was reduced to nine teams following the withdrawal of stronger China in the last moment.

The trophy unveiling  ceremony and press meet of the participating teams was held Thursday afternoon in the Indonesia capital Jakarta.

Earlier  Bangladesh was put in five-team Pool B with Oman, Singapore, Iran and hosts Indonesia.

In the remaining Pool B matches, Bangladesh will face Singapore on March 14,  Iran on March 15 and upper ranked Oman on March 17.

The Pool A team  comprises Thailand, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. 

After playing each other once, the top two teams from each of the two pools will play in the semi-finals on March 19 before the final on March 20.

Bangladesh, champions of the last three meets in 2008, 2012 and 2016 of the Asia’s second-tier hockey, are also well prepared this time under Malaysia Coach  Gobinathan Krishnamurthy to clinch their 4th consecutive title in a row, specially the withdrawal of higher ranked China.

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Bangladesh team made an one and a half hour long practice session in Jakarta Thursday morning and all the Bangladesh players tested negative for Covid- 19 in the 2nd test on Thursday, said a media release on Thursday .

All of the nine participating teams will keep their bird eyes on one of a top three-place in the ensuing AHF Cup to join the final round of the Men's Asia Cup Hockey with the  automatic qualifiers – India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia and Pakistan.