Malaysia announces National hockey squad for the Azlan Cup – Field Hockey Update
The Malaysian Hockey Federation (MHF) had previously delayed the announcement of the final squad that will play tomorrow’s home tournament, the 20th Sultan Azlan Shah Cup to be held in Ipoh, Malaysia, from May 5-15.
Finally, the three vacant spaces have been filled up and the complete squad to represent Malaysia at the Azlan Cup has been announced.
A short-listed player among the 15 out of 18 squad-members, Azreen Rizal Nasir, has been dropped from the team due to a knee injury that took place during Sunday’s friendly match against New Zealand.
Azreen is one of the key defenders for Malaysia that will not be featuring in the Invitational, due to his injury. Malaysia will also not be having their drag-flick expert, Mohamed Amin Rahim, who also is unfit for playing the tournament.
Malaysia’s National Head Coach, Tai Beng Hai, stated Azreen’s last-minute injury as an unfortunate incident for the team. He named Mohamed Izzat Mohamed Rahim to fill the vacancy of Azreen.
With the absence of Amin too, the coach admitted that the team will not be having their best defenders for the tournament. The coach commented on Amin and said, "He has only just recovered from injury and I do not want him to aggravate it in this tournament.
Let him take a long rest."
The defenders that have been included in the squad are Mohamed Madzli Ikmar, Mohd Razie Abdul Rahim and Baljit Singh Charun.
Surprisingly, two more names were dropped from the selected players including a mid-fielder, Faiz Helmi Jali and defender, Mohd Fitri Abu Bakar.
Apart from Rahim, four new names have been added to the squad including Azammi Adabi, Izzat Mohd Rahim, Firhan Ashaari and Kevinder Singh. These four players featured in a friendly match against Pakistan yesterday, which Malaysia lost 2-4.
Kelvinder will return to the field since his injury that occurred during the 2010 Commonwealth Games, in November.
Izzat and Azammi are two members from the junior training squad of Project 2013, whereas, Firhan has been playing matches in the Malaysian Junior Hockey League (MJHL), representing Bandar Penawar Sports School (BPSS) -Thunderbolt.
Malaysia will be facing Great Britain on the opening day of the Malaysian Invitational event, which will be conducted at the Sultan Azlan Shah Stadium in Ipoh.
About the tomorrow’s encounter, the Head Coach said: "We have not played against them for a long time and will give our best."
Beng Hai said that they have set a target to end up fourth in the tournament against the World’s top-class teams. According to him, the team includes some competitive young players that will learn a lot from this international exposure.
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