KARACHI, Jan 28: Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) included underachievers in the 30 probables announced on Saturday for national training camp while several promising and youthful players were not considered.
It was players from lowly-rated teams of ongoing All-Pakistan departmental hockey championship who were called up while those who performed have been overlooked.
Unimpressive Mohammad Atique of Railways and Amir Shahzad of POF have been included in the list despite the fact they hardly showed any promise. Both, Railways and POF, failed to qualify for the quarterfinals.
While selectors could justify their decision by inviting Pakistan Army’s Azhar Iqbal who was impressive, a call to Mohammad Jawaid is incomprehensible.
Ehsan Ullah and Imran Shah who played championship for Habib Bank have also been invited but as Customs players. Waqas Sharif of Wapda earned the nod of the selectors over Shahzad Nasir of PTCL.
NBP’s Owais Moeed and Haseem Khan were sidelined, although the pair have been showing lots of potential for some time, especially Owais who scored an exhilarating hat trick against finalists PIA in last pool match.
Shafqat Rasool of HBL, a Pakistan Under-18 player and Pakistan Steel’s Mohammad Zubair, a former Pakistan junior, failed to find a place in the list despite showing promise.
Asim Khan, who played Junior World Cup and is out of Pakistan senior squad after Azlan Shah Cup last year, has once again been sidelined.
Overall, it seemed selectors focussed on calling up same lot apart from some unimpressive players, while young and precocious youths were ignored who could have played hockey for Pakistan for at least five more years.
The camp, which is scheduled to start at Jinnah Sports Complex, Islamabad, from Feb 6, will be for six-match home and away series with India from Feb 16 to 26.
Commonwealth Games in Melbourne from March 15 to 26 will be second assignment. A separate training camp will be set up for the Games from Feb 27 to March 4, while World Cup qualifiers in Changzhou, China, from April 12 to 23, will be the next event for which players will train from April 1 to 8.
Probables:
PIA: Nasir Ahmad.
NBP: Zeeshan Ashraf, Adnan Maqsood, Imran Warsi, Tariq Aziz, Adnan Zakir, Akhtar Ali. Army: Dilawar Hussain, Mohammad Jawaid, Azhar Iqbal, Mohammad Imran.
PTCL: Salman Akbar, Sajjad Anwar, Mohammad Zubair, Waqas, Yasir Islam, Shakeel Abbasi.
PAF: Kashif Yaqoob.
Wapda: Rehan Butt, Mudassir Ali Khan, Waqas Sharif, Imran Khan, Mudassir Khan, Shabbir Hussain.
ABL: Mohammad Saqlain.
Customs: Ehsan Ullah, Imran Shah.
Railways: Mohammad Atique.
SSGC: Shabbir Khan.
POF: Amir Shahzad.
