ISLAMABAD, Jan 27: Eyeing a clean sweep in the first qualifying round of the Men’s FIVB World Volleyball Championship 2010, Pakistan captain Zaheer Abbas is confident of putting up a strong show against Macau in their opening fixture on Wednesday.

Pakistan play their first match at the Pakistan Sports Complex.

Four teams — Bangladesh, Macau, Maldives and hosts Pakistan — are participating in the three-day qualifying round of the World Championship.

Talking to Dawn on Tuesday Zaheer, 20, said: “ We will be facing Macau for the first time but this does not guarantee’s a win for them [Macau] as we have a good strategy for tomorrow’s fixture”.

“We are looking at winning all the three league matches of the qualifying round and confirming our berth for the next round,” he claimed.

Two top teams from the first round will qualify for the second round slated to be held in Thailand in May this year.

Then again, two top teams from the second round will join Japan and Korea in the third round which will be hosted by Japan in August.

The leading side of the third round will make it to the World Championship, scheduled to be held in Italy in October

2010.

“Our team is a very balanced one comprising mostly young players and in terms of experience we have the expertise of Naseer Ahmed who represented Pakistan in many international fixtures.

Pakistan squad mostly comprises young players with an average age of 23.

A young team for major international events is part of the four-year development programme till 2012 of the Pakistan Volleyball Federation.

Regarding Naseer Ahmed he pointed out: “Naseer Ahmed had recently returned to Pakistan after featuring in the national league in Dubai”.

Meanwhile, Pakistan replaced injured high spiker Mohammad Ismail Khan with Asif Muneer.

About the sudden replacement of Ismail the captain said: “Ismail was injured during a routine training session the other day as he received some stitches on his hand while blocking a smash and his recovery will take some time so we replaced him with Asif.”

Schedule:

Wednesday; Maldives v Bangladesh, Pakistan v Macau.

Thursday: Macau v Maldives, Pakistan v Bangladesh.

Friday: Bangladesh v Macau.

Pakistan v Maldives.