Pakistan Hockey Federation reschedules National Hockey Camps to April 1
Pakistan’s National Hockey training camp that was to begin from March 28 has been rescheduled by the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) to April 1. The venue for the Azlan Shah preparatory camp will be Naseer Bunda Hockey Stadium, Islamabad.
Previously, the PHF had planned to run a trial for 63 players, selected from last month’s Bahawalpur National Championship. The trail was scheduled to be held in Lahore’s National Stadium, starting March 26, followed by training sessions on March 28.
However, the trials were not conducted and the PHF were eventually cancelled. Now the training camp’s schedule has been completely revised and the players shortlisted without any trials.
PHF’s National Selection Committee, comprising of Chairman A. Hanif Khan, Khalid Bashir and Muhammad Arshad Chaudhary, has invited the following players for the training camp:
Kashif Javaid, Zeeshan Ashraf, Waqas Sharif, Abdul Haseem Khan, Muhammad Tousiq, Muhammad Irfan, Akhtar Ali, Arsalan Qadir, Muhammad Rizwan, Ali Shan, Shakeel Abbasi, Syed Kashif Shah, Muhammad Rizwan Sohail Abbas, Waseem Ahmed, Rehan Butt, Muhammad Irfan,
Muhammad Imran, Imran Shah, Muhammad Zubair, Fareed Ahmed, Muhammad Ateeq, Khalid Bhatti, Muhammad Imran, Muhammad Umar Bhutta, Tasawwar Abbas, Muhammad Raashid, Imran Butt, Shafqat Rasool, Waqas Akbar and Mazhar Abbas.
The seven-nation Azlan Shah tournament will be held from 5 to 15 May in Ipoh, Malaysia. The national team’s manager Khawaja Junaid has warned the team to take the upcoming event seriously and has told them to expect the training camp to be grueling.
The Pakistan team has not participated in an international tournament since their Asian Games victory against Malaysia in November. The manager is concerned that three-month gap will hinder the team’s form.
“I hope each and every player will join the camp with full fitness and an active state of mind. Thankfully we have a database maintained that will tell us a player’s previous level of fitness and skill that will be judged in the first phase of the camp,”
he said.
He also discussed the reason for changing the venue and dates of the training camp, “The purpose of arranging the camp in Islamabad is to minimise social distractions for players. We have the best facilities in the capital city with a healthy atmosphere
which is very important for the players to build up their motivation before the event.”
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