The Asian Handball Championship 2022 begins on Wednesday, and the men’s Indian handball team will face hosts, Saudi Arabia in their first encounter. The Asian handball championship 2022, which will be held in Dammam, will finish on January 31, with India facing Iran and Australia too.
There will be two rounds: preliminary and main. The opening round will be divided into four groups (A, B, C, and D), each with four teams. India is in Group B, which also includes Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Australia.
The teams in each group will meet one another in the opening round to decide their group standings. Group I will consist of the winners of Groups A and C, as well as the second-placed teams from Groups B and D. Group II will consist of the winners of Groups B and D, as well as the second-placed clubs from Groups A and C.
In the same way, the teams that finished in the third and the fourth spot in the opening group will be divided into Group III and Group IV. Following another series of round-robin matches in Groups I and II, the teams that finished in the top two spots from each group will advance to the semi-finals.
Meanwhile, the top two teams from Group III and Group IV will battle for ninth place, second-placed teams for 11th, third-placed teams for 13th, and fourth-placed teams for 15th.
The Asian men’s handball championship, a biannual competition, is in its 20th year. The top five teams from this edition will get automatic qualifying to the World Men’s Handball Championship in Sweden and Poland in 2023.
India will compete in the Asian Handball Championship for the fourth time. They previously competed in 1979, 1995, and 2018. Their best performance to date is a fifth-place finish in 1979.
South Korea has won the most championships in the Asian men’s handball tournament, with nine, while Kuwait and Qatar each have four. Qatar has won the last four championships.
Schedule for India is as follows:
India’s Group B matches
January 18, Tuesday: India vs Saudi Arabia – 9:30 PM IST
January 19, Wednesday: Iran vs India – 6:30 PM IST
January 20, Thursday: India vs Australia – 2:30 PM IST
