Hockey team trials begin today

KARACHI: PHF secretary Shahbaz Ahmed is expected to be present when two-day trials for Pakistan team are held on Wednesday (today) and Thursday at Edhi stadium in Karachi, ‘The News’ learnt on Wednesday.

The team is to be selected for a three-nation tournament in Muscat, Oman. The participating teams are Oman, Japan and Pakistan. While the hosts Oman do not have a strong team, Japan’s side has been producing good results in recent past. Japan defeated Pakistan twice and drew a match last year.

Pakistan have failed to do well in recent past. Despite being sent to Australia, New Zealand and Ireland for matches before international competitions, the Green-shirts have produced disappointing results. Pakistan are to participate in at least four big events this year: Commonwealth Games, Champions Trophy, Asian Games and the World Cup.

At Commonwealth Games and Champions Trophy, such leading teams as Australia, India, England, Germany, Holland and Argentina will participate. So the two events will give the Green-shirts a lot of experience before the Asian Games, where they will face relatively weaker sides including South Korea, India, Malaysia, Japan and China.

“When we have established our domination at the Asian level, we will be able to demonstrate our prowess against the strong teams,” said Pakistan hockey team manager-cum-head-coach Hasan Sardar.

“During the training, we will work on our weaknesses due to which our team did not play well in the recent past,” said Sardar. He said that long matches would be played during the trials so that the selection committee members could watch each and every player in different combinations.

Sardar was confident that this time Japan would face a changed Pakistani side. “By defeating them Pakistan’s confidence would be restored,” he said. The head coach admitted that a lot of hard work needed to be done with defenders, goalkeepers, and penalty corner specialists.