September 03, 2008	Wednesday	Ramazan 2, 1429

LAHORE, Sept 2: Four senior hockey players — all former captains — were sidelined on Tuesday as Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) invited 37 probables for a training camp, to be set-up in preparation of next month’s four-nation Hamburg Masters tournament in Germany.

The four former captains, including Rehan Butt, Mohammad Saqlain, Zeeshan Ashraf and Salman Akbar, were ignored by PHF after Pakistan finished at an all-time low eighth position in the recent Beijing Olympics.

Jehangir Butt was named as head coach of the camp which was a surprising move indeed and showed that PHF is not serious in revamping of the game.

It was under Jehangir’s coaching that Pakistan Junior team failed to qualify for the World Junior Cup last year. He also failed to bring good results at the Asian Junior Cup held this year in India.

Another Olympian, Danish Kaleem and Kamran Ashraf were also named as coaches, replacing Khawaja Zakauddin as head coach and Naveed Alam as coach after the two quit their posts following the Beijing Olympics debacle.

A PHF spokesman said that the national selection committee had selected 39 players for the camp but two players, namely Waqas Akbar and Haider Abbas, who took part in the Beijing Olympics with the national team were not available due to their commitments in foreign leagues.

Besides Pakistan and Olympics champions Germany, the other two countries participating in the 4-nation event are Belgium and Malaysia.

The 37 probables will attend the training camp at the Hockey Club of Pakistan, Karachi, from Sept 5.

Probables:

Goalkeepers: Nasir Ahmed, Imran Shah, Imran Butt, Waseem Ahmed.

Right fullbacks: Kashif Ali, Muhammad Atiq, Muhammad Imran.

Left fullbacks: Imran Abbas, Muhammad Khalid, Adnan Javed.

Right half: M. Irfan, Khurram Shahzad, Kashif Javed.

Center half: Zaheer Ahmed, Rana Asif, Rashid.

Left half: Fareed Ahmed, Aamir Shahzad, Rashid Minhas

Right out: Waqas Sharif, Adeel Hussain, Hassan Akhter.

Right-In: Inayat Ullah, M. Tofiq, Rana Umair, Khurrum Shahzad, Azlan Khan.

Center-forward: Shakeel Abbasi, Shabbir Khan, Haseem Khan.

Left-In: Shafqat Rasool, M. Zubair, Shahbaz

Left-out: Akhtar Ali, M. Rizwan, Nasir Shah, M. Imran.