Pakistan hockey team’s training camp begins

KARACHI: Pakistan senior hockey team’s training camp was started on Tuesday in Islamabad with more than fifty players reporting.

The remaining players are likely to report in a couple of days. Farhat Khan, the newly appointed manger-cum-head coach, has said that the training camp would continue till August 14, after which Olympian Hasan Sardar-led selection committee would shortlist the players for the next phase of training in Karachi.

He said that the team management would focus on the physical training as well as on improving the skills of the players. “We have a couple of months before the Asia Cup, scheduled to be held in Bangladesh. We will draw our strategy keeping in mind our Asian rivals, particularly India, South Korea and Malaysia. These three teams are our big rivals at Asian level and China too is an emerging team,” he said.

The national hockey team recently came back from the London qualifying round of World Cup in which it got the seventh position. PHF dismissed the previous selection committee and the team management due to the poor show.

PHF has called the senior players in the training camp in Islamabad to give them chance to prove their form and fitness to represent Pakistan in Asia Cup and other big events, sources said.

The previous management selected a large number of junior players for the London qualifying round — nine players played an international event for the first time. This policy backfired as the Green-shirts faced humiliating defeats.

PHF has also organised a separate goalkeepers training camp in Karachi under the supervision of Olympian Nasir Ahmed, in which 10 best goalkeepers of the country are participating. Two goalkeepers will join the national team’s training camp in Islamabad, the sources said.

They said that PHF was desperately trying to arrange a series with some strong team before the Asia Cup. It has contacted some countries so that Green Shirts before appearing in the Asia Cup. So far no country has responded.  Sardar and Farhat believe that a blend of senior and junior players should be in the national team.