KARACHI: Pakistan senior hockey team’s training camp for Commonwealth Games will be held from March 1. The venue has not been decided yet.
It has been confirmed that Holland’s famous hockey coach Roelant Oltmans will be the coach of Pakistan hockey team. He will join the training camp within a few days after the camp starts, PHF sources informed ‘The News’ on Friday.
The Commonwealth Games are scheduled to be held from April 5-15. It was also learnt that Pakistan would play a practice match against Scotland and two matches with local Australian teams.
Pakistan recently played a three-nation tournament in Oman where they lost to Japan in the final. The performance of Pakistan in the tournament remained unsatisfactory. In the league round, they played a 2-2 draw against Japan and won the other match 2-1.
The most worrying result was that of the league match against Oman which ended in a 4-4 draw after Pakistan had taken 3-0 lead. In that match, they conceded four goals in fifteen minutes, which exposed their weaknesses in defence and goalkeeping.
Roelant Oltmans was present in Oman and he saw the matches of Pakistan. He was there to talk with PHF secretary Shahbaz Ahmed about the coaching assignment.
Chairman selection committee Islahuddin Siddiqui, who was also present in Oman during the event, told ‘The News’ that the players for the training camp would be named in a few days and the performance of players in Oman would be major criteria in the selection of the players.
He further said that it should be remembered that every team in Commonwealth Games would be better than Japan, who have defeated Pakistan thrice in recent competitions.
Informed sources said that due to the importance of the coming international events and having tested several local coaches, PHF finally decided to appoint Roelant Oltmans in an effort to train the players according to the modern-day requirements. Pakistan team currently occupies the lowly 13th spot.
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