ISLAMABAD, July 28: Pakistan named two new faces in an 18-member squad on Saturday for the upcoming 4-nation hockey tournament which commences at Beijing from Aug 8.

Half-back Mudassar and striker Abbas Haider are the uncapped players in the team while Rehan Butt has been retained as captain with goalkeeper Salman Akbar as his deputy.

President of the Pakistan Hockey Federation, Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, read out the list of selected players to media persons after the one-day trials held here. National selectors Khwaja Zakauddin, Islahuddin and Manzoorul Hassan alongwith PHF Secretary Khalid Mehmood were also present on the occasion.

Squad: Salman Akbar and Nasir Ahmed (goalkeepers), Ehsanullah, Kashif Ali and Majid Khan (fullbacks), Imran Khan, M. Imran, Rana Asif, Waqas Zafar and Mudassar (halfbacks), Rehan Butt (captain), Yasir Islam, Shakeel Abbasi, Tariq Aziz, Akhter Ali, Waqas Sharif, Muhammad Arshad and Abbas Haider (forwards).

The rest of the camp probables were named as standbys including Shakir Munir, Ali Rehman, Sami Salim, Waqas Akbar, Ishtiaq, Adnan Zakir, Muhammad Zubair, Muhammad Amin and Shabbir Khan.

Jamali said fullback Imran Warsi missed the camp as he was nursing a shoulder injury while forward Shabbir Khan was not at his peak due to illness. “Both these players are likely to attend the next training camp.

The next training camp for the Asia Cup will be held at Karachi because conditions there would be similar to Chennai, the Indian city which will host the event from Sept 1.

“We decided to compete in the Asia Cup because we are seeded no.1 there,” Jamali said. “We were initially hesitant since we would have had very little time for the Chennai event’s preparation after the Beijing tournament.”

To a question about Australian team’s pullout from the Champions Trophy at Lahore in December, Jamali said that perhaps the Aussies didn't want to ruin their status as Olympic champions because Pakistani team was capable of springing a surprise on them in the high-profile tournament.

“FIH Secretary Peter Cohen, himself an Australian, has written to some other countries expressing his concern about security,” disclosed Jamali.

“But we are taking up the matter at all levels with the governments of foreign teams and the FIH itself. I am personally involved in this process,” he confirmed.

Sounding confident about Pakistan’s chances in Beijing, Jamali said: “We can win at Beijing though this will be a tougher tournament than the Moscow one. No team in contemporary hockey can be taken lightly.”

Besides Pakistan, the other teams participating in the Beijing event are Australia, Malaysia and hosts China.—APP