At least three changes to be made for Asian Champions Trophy

KARACHI: There will be at least three changes to the squad for Asian Champions Trophy in Oman, ‘The News’ has learnt.

Junaid Rasool, Rashid Mahmood and Shafqat Malik were part of the team at Asian Games, but they are not going to Oman. One of them was not called to the training camp, one avoided joining it, and the third will not be released by the club he plays for abroad.

The participants of training camp will report on Tuesday (today) at Abdul Sattar Edhi hockey stadium in Karachi on Tuesday. Trials will be held here on October 11-12. Sources in the team management said that it was the prerogative of the national selection committee to pick the squad, but the team management would give its suggestions in this regard.

The Green-shirts head coach and manager Hasan Sardar said that the ongoing training camp was focusing on the weaknesses and poor finishing of forwards and penalty corner specialists. He said that the forwards were being trained for attacking game and the flaws which caused missing of the goal opportunities were being addressed.

“They create moves and get goal scoring chances but fail to strike,” he said. “Mubashir and Aleem Bilal will be our leading drag flickers on PCs in the Asian Champions Trophy. Abubakar is the third option,” he added.

Sardar said that formal training sessions would be started from Wednesday and as usual two sessions would be held. There are speculations that captain Rizwan Senior will be replaced, but the team management has declined to say anything in this respect.

The team will depart for Oman on October 14 and the Green-shirts will play a practice match against the hosts on October 16. The Asian Champions Trophy will be held in Muscat from October 18 to 28. The other teams in the event will be Japan, India, Malaysia and South Korea.