KARACHI, Jan 2: Chief hockey selector Khawaja Zakauddin on Wednesday finally took a serious note of the overage players in the junior camp, emphasising that it is better to have inexperienced youngsters than older ones who have failed to deliver.

The Olympian has asked selector Samiullah and team manager Jahangir Butt to sift through their papers and records to verify and check how many overage players are in the camp which commenced on Dec 25 at the Hockey Club of Pakistan (HCP).

“I have asked Sami and Jahangir to go through their papers and list of players to see how many overage players we have in the camp. Pakistan Hockey Federation had used overaged players in the past also but we haven’t won any major title for the past so many years. We better give youngsters a chance instead,” Zaka told Dawn after the first-day trials at the stadium.

The Olympian, who watched trials along with selector Samiullah at the HCP to select the squad for the eight-nation tournament starting Jan 17 in Kuala Lumpur, believed it was time a team should be formed with an eye on future assignments.

Zaka said that since fielding overage players in the recent past didn’t serve the purpose, it was better to focus on younger players. “We have been witnessing a gradual decline in the junior hockey, although we preferred overage players for junior events. But did we achieve anything? If we will use overage players in the junior side, we won’t be able to use them in seniors for a long time,” he said.

“We are reducing the life of senior team players because we use overage players in junior team and by the time they are ready to graduate for the senior side, they are already too old to play over a longer period for the seniors. We are already facing a shortage of players in the senior side and the vaccum is increasing because of these overage players,” said the chief selector.

Samiullah also endorsed Zaka’s view. “I am totally against having overage players which is shrinking our base of players for the senior team. Jahangir had asked for overage players but I think this should be stopped.”

Zaka’s stand is certainly in the right direction since Pakistan juniors have several overage and senior team players in their ranks. Pakistan finished third in the six-nation event last October in Singapore, although the squad had the same old bunch of overage players.

Sources said overage players might be axed following the latest stand taken by the selectors.

Ironically, Jahangir Butt had in the past conceded that there might be some overage players but they could not be axed on the basis of being overaged. The manager had told Dawn on Sept 20 last year that, “We can’t just say to any player that he is overaged as all have Nadra-approved documents. But what we can do is that we can slowly and gradually axe them on the criteria that they are not worthy enough. But these things will take time.”

More interestingly, goalkeeper Imran Shah, who staged a comeback after a six-month layoff in the National Junior Championship in Faisalabad a few months ago was excluded from the Habib Bank squad by Jahangir who was serving as the scrutiny committee member.

However, the goalkeeper is very much a part of the ongoing junior training camp while Mohammad Atiq, Shafqat Rasool and Amir Shahzad are all overage players. Atiq was first selected for junior camp in 2002, while Shafqat and Amir in 2001.

Jahangir is also on record having said that Atiq was involved in breaching the code of conduct during a training camp and was found forming groups of players of his choice.

PHF has regularly been drafting senior team forward Mohammad Zubair, who has been ruled out by Islah for lacking seriousness in training. Senior team players Ianaytullah and Kashif Ali are also among the junior camp trainees.

Zaka said PHF chief Zafarullah Jamali could not watch the trials as he had been nursing a knee injury while secretary Khalid Mahmood was bed-ridden after a heart surgery.

Although the team will be finalised on Thursday, it will not be announced without Jamali’s approval.