China not to take part in Asian Champions Trophy

KARACHI: Pakistan hockey team will depart for India on July 31 to participate in the Asian Champions Trophy in Chennai, India.

Chinese hockey team is not coming to participate in the event and now every team will play four matches, 'The News' has learnt. Pakistan hockey team's training camp in Lahore will end in a day or two, the team management informed this scribe.

Head coach Shahnaz Sheikh said that the boys were playing practice matches against strong domestic teams "so that our players who did not play as a team since long get match practice and a team combination can be established".

Pakistan senior team has not played any international event for past eight months. The Green-shirts are playing matches agasint Dar Academy and Rana Zaheer Academy, which are considered strong teams in the country and have provided a number of players to Pakistan senior and junior teams.

Shahnaz said that Asian Champions Trophy is a big and tough competition and all teams are tough. He said that Pakistan team is passing through a developing phase. "Our focus is on qualifying for Olympics and World cup, and improve our world ranking," he said.

The Asian Champions trophy will helping Pakistan in the preparation for Asian Games and qualifying rounds for Paris Olympics 2024. Shahnaz said the weaknesses of the team were being addressed in the training camp, especially improving the ratio of goals on penalty corners.

"Our players have not been successful in their converting penalty corners into goals," he said. He said attacking game plan has been adopted for the Asian Champions Trophy. "Attention is also being paid to developing skills for the shootout phase," he said.