KARACHI: Former Olympian and manager of the Pakistan junior hockey team Qamar Ibrahim has said that the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) had formed nucleus of players — seniors, juniors and development squad — under a three-tier system in order to strengthen the base for the revival of game in the country.

He expressed optimism that good results would be visible only after skills of the players are polished under the visiting Dutch coach Roelant Oltmans.

“Some 40 to 42 players, who are under my team management, will assemble at a camp in Islamabad on April 1 to prepare for future international commitments,” he told Dawn on Saturday.

He is being assisted in the camp by coach Kamran Ashraf, Nasir Ahmed (goalkeeping coach) and Asim Abbasi (video analyst).

Qamar, who has assumed charge of manager of the junior team about six months back, said the juniors will tour a number of foreign countries including Canada, Poland, France, Holland and Spain in June and play 12 to 15 matches.

“The PHF is working to finalise the Pakistan juniors’ upcoming tour programme aimed at giving them maximum exposure,” he said.

He said that the development squad is likely to compete in the Youth Olympic qualifiers (Asia) being held at Bangkok from April 25 to 29.

He added that prior to taking the charge, the juniors, for the first time, have undergone over two months tour of Australia and played a number of matches and returned with flying colours in their national junior under-18 championship at Hobart in their conditions. Then, former Olympian Kamran Ashr af accompanied the team as head coach, he added.

The manager said the team was shaping well and had played half-a-dozen matches including two against the World XI. The remaining four practice matches were played against seniors — two before the Oman tri-series and two recently against the Commonwealth Games bound team.

“Oltmans, who will lookafter Pakistan hockey training structure, had noticed grey areas including fitness of the juniors and will give a schedule to improve it,” he said.

Qamar, who is qualified FIH coach and had remained associated with the Bangladesh hockey team in the past, was confident that training methods of Oltmans will make a big difference and bring the national game back on the track.

Published in Dawn, March 26th, 2018