We’ll have a sound team before Rio qualifiers: Imran

KARACHI: Pakistan captain Muhammad Imran is hopeful that his team will perform well at the Olympic qualifying rounds in Belgium next month and the Green-shirts will be successful to secure a berth in Rio Olympics.
Talking to ‘The News’ after returning from South Korea, Imran said that the team played tough hockey against Australia, New Zealand and South Korea. “Boys got tremendous experience in these matches,” he said.
Imran said the team was playing in order to try different combinations. “Various shortcomings and weaknesses were identified. We need to play more international matches for removing them. We will rectify them during practice sessions and practice matches in Belgium where Pakistan will reach 12 days before the competitions,” he said.
“The 12 days in Belgium before the competitions will be precious for us as we will use them to get acclimatised,” he added.
The penalty corner specialist said Pakistan played well against World No 1 Australia and New Zealand and South Korea. “Our boys had not played such tough competitions for a long time. We got some tough lessons through these nine matches,” he claimed.
He said that travelling schedule was also tough. “We had to play the very next day after reaching there due to which our performance was not that good initially in Australia and South Korea, but later our performance got better,” he claimed.
Imran said the players could play skillful hockey under pressure against big teams as they played against Australia and New Zealand. “They need some experience of international matches and then we will have a strong team,” he said. He said that Pakistan had improved in indirect short corners which was a good sign. “But our forwards’ performance was erratic,” he said.
He hoped that after inclusion of Rizwan Senior and Rashid Mehmood the performance of the Green-shirts would be better.
Pakistan won two back-to-back silver medals last year under Imran’s leadership. First they secured silver medal at Asian Games and then at Champions Trophy.