LAHORE The two-day trials to select the Pakistan team for the 8th Asia Cup hockey start at the National Hockey Stadium (NHS) on Wednesday.
The Asia Cup is scheduled to be held in Kuantan, Malaysia from May nine to 16.
The officials of the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF), pinning hope on four senior players Sohail Abbas, Wasim Ahmad, Salman Akbar and Rehan Butt are expecting a good show from the team, which has been failed to win a major tournament in close to a decade.
Except goalkeeper Salman Akbar, all three others senior players had joined the ongoing training camp at the National Hockey Stadium after being relieved by their Dutch hockey league clubs. Salman is scheduled to join the camp on the first day of trials. The all four senior players were not available to the national team for the last Azlan Shah Cup held in Malaysia early this month as they were playing hockey for their Dutch clubs. Experts, however, have some doubts for the better performance from those seniors, who just have joined the camp and need time to be settled down with junior players to make better combination and understanding with them.
There is also an unconfirmed report that the PHF is considering an option to change Zeeshan Ashraf as captain with another one, most probably one from the seniors.
Zeeshan led the team in Azlan Shah Cup in which Pakistan secured poor fourth place among five countries. Before Azlan Shah Cup, the team toured Germany to play in Hamburg Masters under the leadership of Shakeel Abbasi, as time and again changes in this department are being made which clearly show inconsistency in the affairs of the PHF. For Hamburg Masters Zeeshan was rested after the national team performed badly in the Beijing Olympics-2008 getting first time poor 8th spot. A permanent captain till Asia Cup soon after the Olympics might have served better results.
The trials will be held under the floodlights on Wednesday from 6pm. On Thursday it will begin at 4pm and soon after the completion of the trials, national selection committee headed by Hasan Sardar will announce the team.
Pakistan will reach Malaysia on May four and will play two practice matches first against Malaysia on May five and second against Japan on May seven before meeting China in the opening match of the Asia Cup on May 9. Besides Pakistan and China the other teams in pool 'B' are India and Bangladesh. In pool 'A,' Korea, Japan, Malaysia and Oman are included.
