Senior hockey team’s training camp starts today

KARACHI: The third phase of Pakistan senior team’s training camp will start from Tuesday (today) at National Hockey Stadium in Lahore.

PHF has released the names of the 12 players who will be part of the training camp. Talking to ‘The News’ on Monday, the head coach of Pakistan senior team Olympian Khwaja Junaid said that due to COVID-19, the training is being organised for players in groups.

He said that in this training camp the team management would focus on the hockey skills of the players with physical training. “We will focus on the abilities and improvement of attacking and defending game of our players during the two sessions, morning and evening, on daily basis,” he said.

He said that there were two goalkeepers and two penalty corner specialists and the rest of the boys forwards and defenders. Junaid said that there were no international hockey assignments in the near future and due to the pandemic no country was interested in bilateral series. “We have no option but to keep our players in action and super fit and to organise maximum number of domestic hockey tournaments as well as training camps. And that’s what we are doing,” he said.

He said that as far as lack of match practice was concerned, there was no issue as they were playing continuously rigorous domestic hockey tournaments, including national championship.

The head coach admitted there was lack of experience of international matches. “But in these circumstances we are doing our best to groom our players, making them learn about the requirements of international competitions through training camps. We are removing their weaknesses which we find during the camp training,” he added.

“We have found talented fresh and budding players through a comprehensive process of selection and trials. Now these selected players are passing through a tough training programme which will prepare them for tough international competitions,” he said.

The players called to the camp are Amjad Ali (SSGC), Munibur Rehman (SSGC), Mubashir (SSGC), Azfar Yaqoob (SSGC), Umer Bhutta (WAPDA), Abubakar Mehmood (NBP), Ali Shan (SSGC), Ijaz Ahmed (WAPDA), Ammad Shakeel Butt (NBP), Tanzeemul Hasan (Mari Petroleum), Rana Riaz Sohail (SSGC), and Hamza (SSGC). Ajmal Khan Lodhi will be the coach and Abid Amin the physical trainer.