KARACHI, June 9: Six players who were attending the seniors’ hockey camp in Islamabad, including junior team captain Mazhar Abbas, will be joining the national junior camp at the Hockey Club of Pakistan Stadium here on Friday.

The Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) is holding the final phase of the junior camp here in preparation for the Junior Asia Cupbeing staged in Singapore from June 17 to 26.

“These [six] players were released from the seniors’ camp in Islamabad after the national trials for the Europe tour and will arrive here on Friday to start training from Saturday,” coach Olympian Ahmed Alam said on Thursday.

Other players who have been released from the seniors camp included Mohammad Rizwan, Bilal Qadir, Arsalan Qadir, Ali Shah and Mohammad Irfan.

“All these six players are part of Pakistan junior team probables already named by the selection committee,” Ahmed said, adding Pakistan would be defending their crown which they won at Yangon, Myanmar, two years ago.

Currently, he said, 23 boys were attending the junior camp and the arrival of six more players would raise the camp strength to 29.—APP