LAHORE: Pakistan women hockey team’s coach Mohammad Usman believes the new-look outfit face an uphill task to make the Asia Cup when they feature in the qualifying round starting on Oct 1 in Bangkok.

“The task ahead of our women’s team is not easy as it has been formed after a gap of three years. It is a fresh team with eight new players who have never competed in an international match,” Usman told APP in an interview after a training session of the team at the National Hockey Stadium here on Thursday.

Usman, a celebrated former Olympian who represented Pakistan team from 1989 to 2002, said the qualifying round for the Asia Cup was challenging for the largely inexperienced Pakistan team whose ongoing training camp was established only a month ago.

“In the past efforts were not made to ensure the Pakistan women squad’s participation in any international event. [Therefore] the current team is playing the qualifying round after a significant gap of three years,” Usman emphasised.

Pakistan have been placed alongside Chinese Taipei, Uzbekistan and hosts Thailand in the group for the qualifying round while the other group comprises Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Cambodia.

Top two teams from the qualifying event will make the Asia Cup to be played later this year.

“Though sincere efforts are being made to train the team to enable them to give their best in the qualifying event, still expecting high performance from them will not be fair,” Usman conceded.

He added: “The credit of reviving women’s team and ensuring its participation in the [Asia Cup] qualifying round goes to the incumbent Pakistan Hockey Federation regime which is laying special emphasis on the development of women’s hockey.

“The camp is being run in two daily sessions; in the morning session we emphasise physical fitness and conduct short corner drills while in the afternoon session practice matches are played between team members and camp probables,” the coach stated while elaborating on the camp activities.

Published in Dawn, September 23rd, 2016