LAHORE, July 10: The day-long trials to short-list the hockey probables for the Beijing Olympic being held here at the National Hockey Stadium on Thursday resulted in the axing of five players, reducing the final count to 24.

Full-back Ihsanullah, half-backs Shahid Saleem, Rizwanullah, inside-left Tariq Aziz and outside-right Azhar all failed to impress the national selection committee headed by former Olympian Islahuddin Siddiqi.

“The boys are improving their skill and stamina in the camp and they also have an appropriate one-month time ahead to further hone their skills before entering the Olympic arena,” Islah told Dawn after the trials.

“Tariq Aziz was not fit enough since he is suffering from fever, thus he has been relieved from the camp. The boys who were relieved are good but they just need to improve a little more. Hopefully they have learnt a lot during this training camp,” he added.

Tariq, who was earlier said to have a good future ahead of him, failed in regaining his lost glory after hitting an Australian player with his hockey stick during the Commonwealth Games in Manchester for which he also faced a ban by the PHF.

Sources said that while PHF President Zafarullah Khan Jamali specially invited Tariq and Ihsanullah for the camp in order to give them another chance to prove their talent, the new PHF Secretary Asif Bajwa carried a different view about both them.

Meanwhile, Islah said that the six players, namely, Mohammad Atiq, Mohammad Irfan, Farid-ud-Din, Zubair Ahmad, Shafqat Rasool, Haseem Khan, who are currently touring India to play in the Junior Asia Cup would be rejoining the camp on July 20, a day before the final trials for the Olympics.

When asked about the purpose of calling the entire selection committee just to axe five probables, Islah said that he could not say much about the matter since he was in the USA where his son had met with a serious traffic accident in San Francisco.

“I just reached Karachi in the morning and was asked to come to Lahore to conduct the trials,” he explained. “I was in the US for the last two months and thank God my son is recovering well after the accident. I would like to take this opportunity to also thank all my Pakistani and American friends who prayed for my son’s well being,” he said.

The Beijing Olympics hockey competition starts from August 7 when Pakistan play its opener against Great Britain.

Meanwhile, head coach Zaka told Dawn that Pakistan would also play some practice matches before the start of the Olympics. “We will go to China about a week before the games and have decided one match against South Korea,” he said.Col. (retd.) Mudassar Asghar as member of the selection committee and PHF Secretary Asif as ex-officio also attended the trials.