KARACHI: Pakistan hockey team’s manager-cum-head coach, former Olympian Hasan Sardar said he is eyeing to regain the Asian Games title at Jakarta later this year in order to earn a direct ticket for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

“The year 2018 is very important from our point of view as it has four important events lined up in the Commonwealth Games, the Champions Trophy, the Asian Games and the World Cup,” he told newsmen while supervising first day’s training session of the national hockey camp probables at the Abdul Sattar Edhi Stadium on Tuesday.

He is being assisted in the camp by coaches Mohammad Saqlain and Rehan Butt.

With the exception of five probables, 37 have reported in the camp. Three players namely Ammad Shakeel Butt, Azfar Yaqoob and Aleem Bilal were playing league in Malaysia while Rizwan and Rashid are expected to join by Wednesday.

Hasan, who has recently been inducted in the Hall of Fame by the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) along with other legends, said his team’s first assignment will be a four-nation international tournament being held at Muscat next month. Besides Pakistan, other teams include Japan, Oman and South Korea.

Pakistan team will fly to Muscat on Feb 10, he added.

Hasan, a former Mumbai World Cup and Los Angeles Olympic gold medallist, said due to shortage of time, the players will undergo physical drill in the morning and match practice in the afternoon for three days before taking a day’s rest.

Trials will be held to select the team for the quadrangular event, he said.

He disclosed that plans are afoot to invite two to three specialist foreign coaches including for penalty corners and goalkeeping.

The former Olympian said the players will also have workouts in the gymnasium to improve their fitness. “The nutrition of players will also be improved,” he remarked.

Making comparison, he was of the view that the skills of Pakistani players were still better than the Europeans but they needed to improve in areas like goalkeeping, PC conversion and required to remain focussed to avoid blunders in matches.

It is pertinent to mention that Hasan had once managed the Pakistan team at the Afro-Asian Games hockey tournament held at India in 2003 where the greenshirts ended up with a silver medal.

He expressed his dismay on the renowned PC striker Sohail Abbas’ failure to lead the World XI in a two-match series. “The PHF honoured him (Sohail) by naming him captain besides offering the same purse of US$3,000 that was given to the foreign players.”

“Had he (Sohail) accepted the offer and led the World XI, he would have been my first choice as PC expert to train players in the camp for a reasonable honorarium,” he concluded.

Published in Dawn, January 24th, 2018