Pakistan face Oman in volleyball practice match today

KARACHI: Pakistan volleyball team will face Oman in Doha on Tuesday (today) to get some match practice ahead of the Asian Championship which will be held in Surabaya, Indonesia, from July 24 to August 1.

“Yesterday, we trained and today again we had fitness training in both morning and evening. Tomorrow we will face Oman and on Wednesday we will clash with Qatar,” Pakistan’s Iranian coach Hamid Movahedi told ‘The News’ from Doha on Monday.

The matches will be held at the Qatar Volleyball Federation’s gymnasium. Pakistan team is staying at the Crown Plaza in Qatar’s capital. The Green-shirts will proceed to Indonesia on July 20 for taking part in the continental event in which Pakistan have been placed in Group B with Iran, Chinese Taipei and Iraq.

Indonesia, Qatar, Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia form Group A, while defending champions Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Sri Lanka form Group C. Australia, China, Thailand and Hong Kong have been clubbed in Group D.

In the preliminaries, Pakistan will begin their journey with a game against Chinese Taipei on July 24. They face Iran on July 25 and Iraq on July 26. In the last edition, Pakistan finished tenth.

Pakistan’s coach says that the group is very tough. “We will try our best. Our group is tough. Iran are Asian champions, Chinese Taipei took fifth position in the last event
and Iraq took fifth position in the Asian Club Championship last week in Vietnam but we
are working hard,” Movahedi said.

Pakistan: Muneer Khan, Mubashir Reza, Asif Nadeem, Sheraz, Aimal Khan, Naseer Ahmed (captain), Imran Sultan, Kashif Naved, Murad Jehan, Mohammad Idrees, Mohammad Adeel, Nasir Ali, Fahad Reza, Fakhruddin.

Officials: Mohammad Farooq (manager), Hamid Movahedi (coach), Mazhar Hussain, Mohammad Jameel, Ubaidullah Shah (assistant coaches), Farokhi Fard (analyst, Iran).