Pak junior hockey team’s training camp in Karachi from Feb 12

KARACHI: Pakistan junior hockey team’s training camp would be held from Feb 12-23 in Karachi at Abdul Sattar Edhi Hockey stadium, the PHF announced on Tuesday.

A PHF spokesperson said that the training camp would be comprising 14 players keeping in mind the preventive measures and SOPs of COVID 19.

The team is to participate in the Junior Asia Cup 2021 from July 1-10 in Dhaka. The Asia Cup is the qualifying round for participation in Junior Hockey World Cup, which will be held either later this year or early next year in India.

It has to be mentioned that the training camp is being held after a gap of five months. The training camp of national junior players could not be held on regular basis due to various reasons, including financial constraints, international cricket matches and PSL in Lahore and COVID 19.

Pakistan is lagging behind other countries for the past few years and one of the reasons is the lack of participation in international activities. The junior team could not participate in the World Cup in India in 2016 due to Indian conspiracies.

Pakistan senior team fell to 17th position in the world, the lowest in its history. One of the major reasons for this is that supply line of young, energetic, talented players was discontinued because of non-participation in junior hockey world cup in 2016.

This year, PHF tried to arrange bilateral series with strong hockey-playing countries but it could not be done because of COVID-19.

To address the problem of juniors’ lack of match experience, PHF has planned 12 matches between Pakistan seniors and juniors.

But PHF has failed to announce the schedule of these matches although it announced one month ago that the matches would be held in three provinces.

The following players will participate in the training camp. Rana Waheed (WAPDA), Moin Shakeel (Sui Southern), Gazanfar Ali (Sui Southern), Waqar Ali (Goalkeeper, WAPDA), Mohsin Khan (Pak Air Force), Umair (Mari Patroleum) Aqeel (Mari Pateroleum), Abdullah (Goalkeeper, Mari Pateroleum), Ramzan Khan (WAPDA), Mohibullah (WAPDA), Murtaza Yaqoob (Mari Pateroleum), Muhammad Anjum (WAPDA), Hanan Shahid (Lahore), and Ali Raza (Faisalabad).

Olympian Danish Kaleem will be the head coach of Pakistan juniors.