PHF drops 13 unfit players from camp

Head coach Khan wants to identify, train best hopefuls for October tournament

KARACHI: Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) has dropped 13 players who failed the minimum fitness levels at the seniors team camp which was held to prepare for the upcoming Asia Cup scheduled to be held in October.

The new management has taken over the task to improve the fitness standards of the players and amongst the 13 are Ateeq Arshad and Kashif Ali, who have been a part of both seniors and juniors teams for past one year.

PHF’s physical trainer Nasrullah on July 21, after taking the fitness test before the start of the camp, declared 13 players unfit out of 60 announced ones for the camp — just a day after the new management took charge.

Seniors camp, which began on July 24, is being led by camp commandant Olympian Farhat Hassan Khan along with Malik Muhammad Shafqat and Muhammad Sarwar. PHF’s new higher management is optimistic for better results under a good team of coaches. “We still have a pool of 47 players out of which we have to make a team for Asia Cup,” said Khan.

Khan also informed The Express Tribune that the final squad for Asia Cup will be announced in mid-September. “We have to work on players’ fitness and skill before the mid of September, before we announce the final squad. We want to identify the best players so the selection committee can finalise the squad,” he said.

The new selection committee is being led by Hassan Sardar along with Ayaz Mehmood and Syed Musaddiq Hussain who are witnessing the camp and practice matches there.

The shortlisted players, after the second phase of the camp, will continue training till their they travel to Dhaka, Bangladesh for the Asia Cup.

The dropped players from the camp include Mohammad Ateeq Arshad, Qazi Asfandyar, Zeeshan Bukhari, Sohail Manzoor, Kashif Ali, Faisal Rasheed, Asad Aziz, Awaisur Rehman, Faraz, Usman, Nadeem, Ali Akbar and Mohsin Sabir.