February 20, 2008	Wednesday	Safar 12, 1429

KARACHI, Feb 19: The Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) has once again recalled discarded seniors Mohammad Waseem and Mohammad Saqlain for the national training camp which commenced in Lahore on Tuesday.

Both the players have a long history of indiscipline and their recall has surprised many in the hockey circles.

Waseem, who was handed a ban by the PHF a couple of years ago, has also faced several penalities for skipping a number of tournaments while preferring to play the foreign leagues instead.

He abruptly announced his retirement after the 2004 Champions Trophy in Lahore and later turned down several requests from the authorities to join the national ranks. The left-half, however, staged a ‘comeback’ to play Champions Trophy and the World Cup in 2006 before once again snubbing the PHF in the Asian Games training camp.

Last year, when Waseem was approached for the Champions Trophy camp, he flatly refused the PHF invitation, citing his prior engagements in Germany as the reason.

As for Saqlain, his erratic behaviour both on and off the field has been an embarrassment for the PHF over the past few years. He was dropped from the 2000 Sydney Olympics team over charges of misconduct and was later axed from the 2004 Athens Games squad by coach Roelant Oltmans for hitting teammate Adnan Maqsood. The same year, Saqlain received a one-match suspension for injuring a South Korean player during the Azlan Shah Cup in Malaysia.

The centre-half was also handed a three-match suspension and a 100-euro fine by International Hockey Federation (FIH) after he seriously injured Australia’s Victory Craig at the 2005 Hamburg Masters.

The current manager-cum-chief coach, Khawaja Zakauddin, however, threw his weight behind the controversial centre-half when asked about PHF’s change of heart on Saqlain.

Also recalled to the camp is fullback Imran Warsi who just last year tried to deceive the authorities by hiding his shoulder injury to make the Asia Cup squad in Chennai.

The selectors have also invited relatively unknown Atif Mushtaq, Mohammad Riaz, Saeed Shah, Mohammad Idrees and Kamran to the camp while goalkeeper Mohammad Iqbal, who has remained under scrutiny for hiding his age a year ago, is also among the camp trainees.

On the other hand, promising penalty corner striker Kashif Ali and forward Imran Rashid have been overlooked. However, dashing centre-forward Haseem Khan has rightly been included among the probables by the selectors who had earlier preferred junior team reserve Inayatullah in the same position.