LAHORE, Sept 24: Pakistan hockey team’s head coach and manager Akhtar Rasool resigned from his post on Tuesday amid reports that he is likely to contest the November elections for the President, Pakistan Hockey Federation.

Dawn learnt on Tuesdsay that the real reason behind Akhtar’s resignation is not the national team’s poor show in international hockey of late — where they failed to qualify for the 2014 World Cup — but the former full back was in fact preparing to contest the polls for the top PHF post.

There are also reports that the minister for Inter-provincial Coordination Riaz Pirzada has suggested to the prime minister to impose ad hoc on the PHF.

However, Akhtar and his lobby in the parliament have opposed the move as they are keen to have fresh PHF elections conducted in November.

Sources in the PHF said Akhtar and the incumbent PHF secretary Rana Mujahid have bright chances of getting elected as the PHF president and secretary respectively since they had also recently succeeded in appointing federal minister Pervaiz Rashid as the election commissioner.

The federal minister, sources said, is himself not in favour of ad hoc getting imposed on the PHF.

Meanwhile, the PHF on Tuesday announced the names of 27 probables for the back-to-back international events — the International Super Series and the third Asian Champions Trophy.

This time around, however, the Pakistan hockey team will not have the services of as many as ten experienced players who have opted out due to various reasons.

While five senior players namely goalkeeper Salman Akbar, Rashid Mahmood, Haseem Khan, Rizwan Senior and Fareed Ahmad will not be available for the national team since they will be playing in league hockey in Europe, four others including Shakeel Abbasi, Mohammad Irfan, Mohammad Zubair and Waqas Sharif have not been selected for the camp due to their poor performances in the last Asia Cup in Malaysia where Pakistan could only manage to earn third place.

The 27 probables will participate in a training camp scheduled to be held from Sept 27 at the National Hockey Stadium.

The national team will be announced at the end of the camp for the nine-a-side International Super Series which will be held from Oct 17-25 at Perth, Australia.

Later on, the national team will defend the third Asian Champions Trophy, scheduled to be organised from Nov 1 to 10 in Kakamigahara, Japan.

Talking to Dawn, coach and camp commandant Tahir Zaman, who has become the focal person in the national hockey team in the wake of Akhtar’s resignation, said that keeping in view the next Junior World Cup (to be held in India in December), almost all junior players have been included in the list of probables.

“After playing in Australia and later in Japan, our juniors will get more international exposure and that will help them prepare well for the Junior World Cup later this year,” Tahir maintained.

“Also, any player could stage a comeback in the national team after performing well in the domestic fixtures,” he maintained.

Tahir further said that the PHF would hold a farewell function in honour of Waseem Ahmad in the near future since Waseem has also announced his retirement from international hockey.

Waseem had previously announced his retirement in 2004 alongwith Sohail Abbas at the end of then Champions Trophy edition but both the players later changed their decisions and returned to international hockey.

Wasim once again announced his retirement after the 2012 London Games but Akhtar as head coach convinced him to withdraw his decision.

Probables:

Imran Shah, Imran Butt, Khurram Majeed, Mohammad Imran, Mohammad Ateeq, Aamir Shahzad, Shafqat Rasool, Yasir Shabbir, Mohammad Salman Hussain, Mazhar Abbas, Amin Yousaf, Mohammad Khalid, Syed Kashif Shah, Mohammad Rizwan Junior, Mohammad Tousiq, Mohammad Faisal Qadir, Mohammad Dilber, Ali Shan, Mohammad Umair, Mohammad Umar Bhutta, Zohaib Ashraf, Mohammad Kashif Javed, Ammad Shakeel Butt, Mohammad Suleman, Mohammad Arslan Qadir, Ahmed Zubair and Ayub Ali.