National hockey team starts training in Islamabad for the Australian tour – Hockey News
The twenty five selected national hockey team probables have started far-reaching training sessions in Islamabad for the upcoming Australian tour. The national team will play a test match series against the Kookaburras besides a three-nation nine-a-side
tournament where they will also face the challenge of their arch-rivals, India, the Asian Champions Trophy winner and the hosts Australia.
Earlier the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) selection committee headed by the former Olympian, Hanif Khan has announced twenty five expected players for the Australian assignment which also include the veteran goal-keeper, Salman Akbar and the penalty corner
specialist Sohail Abbas, who holds the World record of most number of goals scored along with the highest penalty corner conversion rate of almost 65 percent.
The experienced duo had not featured in the Greenshirts during the first Asian Champions Trophy held last month in China. The Greenshirts lost to India on penalty shoot outs in the final of the event. During the tournament, the national side was comprised
of a number of youngsters that played wonderfully in spite of some lapses in penalty corner execution and goalkeeping. Keeping in mind the flaws in both departments, the PHF has decided to once again include the seasoned duo in the national side for the Australian
tour as well as for the FIH Men’s Champions Trophy to be held in Auckland, New Zealand, in December this year.
Khwaja Junaid, the manager of the national hockey team, stated that in the training camp their main focus is on improving the skills in goalkeeping and penalty-corner execution.
“These departments need improvement. We have arranged special sessions for bringing improvement in this regard,” Junaid said.
Meanwhile, the first edition of the U-16 National Hockey Championship is going to be conducted at the Lala Ayub Hockey Stadium in Peshawar from October 11 to 22. Initially the event was scheduled to be held in Lahore but due to the running dengue threat,
the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) has decided to shift the tournament from Lahore to Peshawar.
The tournament will be comprised of 12 Junior teams from across the country including three teams from Punjab, two from Sindh, two from Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa and one team each from Balochistan, Islamabad, FATA, Gilgit, Baltistan and Azad Jammu-Kashmir (AJK).
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