Pakistan Hockey Team Selector Hanif Khan backs senior players
Pakistan’s hockey team Chief Selector, Hanif Khan, has rendered his support with the senior players and declared them as need of the hour for the national hockey team.
It is vital to mention here that the selector expressed these remarks when the Greenshirts arrived back after an unwell and unimpressive performance in the Europe Tour. He urged the significance of senior names to retain in the hockey team for the forthcoming events including the Champions Trophy and the 2012 London Olympics.
Speaking to the media, the Chief Selector was of the view that the senior names would be result-oriented players of the Greenshirts and victory would be a difficult task without their presence. He explained that they won the game during the European tour due to the senior names.
He stated, “The seniors will be the game changers for us and Pakistan hockey can’t survive without them. We had five seniors and 13 new players in the squad. I don’t think this tour was a bad show but I strongly believe that the matches we won were because we had Sohail Abbas, Rehan Butt and Shakeel Abbasi in the team as we didn’t have anyone else who could’ve scored.”
It is vital to mention here that the Greenshirts contested 12 games during the European Tour and won only five. It managed two draws, while faced defeats in the other five fixtures. Pakistan lost the games in the hands of Netherlands and Germany. However, the selector opined that the defeats from better squads would assist them to overcome their weak areas.
The Greenshirts lost their event opening game in the hands of France in the Four-Nation event, held in Irish city of Dublin. In the meantime, they lost to the Netherlands and Germany in the Rabo Four-Nation in which they secured the last fourth position.
Pakistan drew the series against Belgium, while faced defeat in the hands of Dutch team once again in the final fixture.
Commenting on the fitness of the senior names, Hanif stated that the line-up would have to work on the fitness and stamina, but the requirement of experience players for the Olympic Games will not be ignored. He maintained that the federation has not had enough time to prepare a fresh line-up for the mega event. The combination of new names and experiences players would have to work hard in overcoming the weaknesses particularly on conversion rate and defence.
In the meantime, Shakeel Abbasi, the forward player, regretted over the failure of tour particularly the defeat against the French team. In his views, the absence of former skipper, Zeeshan Ashraf, was also felt during the tour. The Greenshirts could not perform well than what they had done.
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