KARACHI, Dec 8: Pakistan will have their last activity of the year when the triangular hockey series involving seniors, juniors and Malaysia rolls off from Tuesday at Hockey Club of Pakistan (HCP).

Pakistan senior and junior team managements have opted against forming the squads with an intention of fielding as many players as possible against the Malaysians.

“We will field different combinations of players against juniors and the Malaysians to give the new coach (Roelant Oltmans) a chance to select best possible squad for Azlan Shah Cup in January,” senior team assistant coach Tahir Zaman said.

Oltmans is expected to arrive here early Tuesday morning to join the Pakistan side, just hours before seniors and juniors take on each other.

Part-time manager of the juniors, Hassan Sardar, said all the 42 probables would be given an opportunity to prove their worth against their seniors and the tourists.

“We have 42 players now, while two or three did not report. We will try almost every player during the series,” he said.

The juniors camp almost ran without the manager as Hassan hardly visited it since Dec 5.

Hassan, who is acting as manager in absence of Col Abdur Rauf, had also been the manager of the senior side that went to Hyderabad, India, to play Afro-Asian Games in October.

Pakistan seniors, having penalty corner striker Sohail Abbas and spearhead Kashif Jawwad back into the folds, could be termed as favourites. Both the players had skipped the Afro-Asian Games because of personal commitments.

As for Pakistan juniors, although the youngsters are promising, the team management is still experimenting with different combinations for the last one year. The juniors are to play Asia Cup next year at same venue which also serves as the qualifying round for World Cup.

While the series will help Pakistan form the Azlan Shah Cup squad, Malaysians will be having a warm-up before playing an away series against Spain. They might not pose a threat to the senior Pakistan side, but are expected to give the juniors some resistance.

Pakistan seniors and juniors face each other in the opening game at 2.30pm. The tour party who are scheduled to arrive on Dec 10 play their first match against junior outfit on Dec 12.

Ironically, the series begins Tuesday, but the new pitch is still being pasted and stadium spruced up at the eleventh hour.

Not only pasting is yet to be done, the pieces have not been stitched. But the workers argued the turf did not need stitching.

Workers say they would be handing over the turf Tuesday morning before Pakistan seniors and juniors meet in the first game.

However, it is yet to be seen how the new surface would behave tomorrow when the two national sides face each other. Usually a new turf is heavy at the initial stages, but keeping in view surface which is uneven from places, it might pose even a greater danger of injuries to the players.

According to workers, the turf would be levelled once watered in the morning after the pasting and marking is over.