Junior hockey team leaves for Malaysia tomorrow

Muneebur Rehman replaces injured Talal Khalid

KARACHI: Pakistan’s junior hockey team is ready to fly for Malaysia to participate in the Sultan Johor Bahru Under-21 invitational tournament.

The Green-shirts leave the country on Friday (tomorrow).

The junior team would hold its last training session on Thursday (today) morning, said chief coach Olympian Tahir Zaman while talking to ‘The News’.

“We have emphasised improving our goalkeeping and defence as these were the weak areas hunting our performance.

“The role of midfielders has been increased in the deep defence and we have directed forwards to keep the momentum after scoring goals because rival teams attack immediately after conceding goals.

“In modern hockey the role of goalkeeper has become much more important than before. We improved the skills of our goalkeepers and made them mentally tough to stop counter attacks.

“The Malaysian tournament is the last stage of our preparation for Junior World Cup, which will be held in December in India.

“The Malaysian tournament will be a tough test as Australia, England, New Zealand, Malaysia and Japan are good teams,” said the chief coach.

Each team is to play six matches in this single league tournament.

Tahir said he would experiment with different combinations to judge the strengths and weaknesses of the team.

FIH has allowed each team to have 20 players so as to help countries finalise their 18-member teams for the Junior World Cup.

“Unfortunately our second goalkeeper Talal Khalid has been injured in a road accident,” the chief coach revealed. “His arm has been injured. He will not go with the team.

“Muneebur Rehman has replaced Talal. Ali Raza will be the leading goalkeeper,” Tahir said.

The chief coach refused to predict about the Green-shirts standing in the tournament. “Australia, England, New Zealand and Malaysia are all tough opponents, but we are hopeful that we will be among the top three teams,” he added.