KARACHI, April 14: Led by Shafqat Rasool, the Pakistan junior hockey squad leaves for Durban, South Africa, on Tuesday to play seven matches against the host.

Pakistan Juniors will play two matches against South African Seniors on Thursday and Friday, and five matches against South Africa’s under-21 team on 20th, 21st, 23rd, 25th and 26th of the current month.

On the eve of team’s departure, Jahangir Butt, the manager cum-chief-coach, said the tour would provide good opportunity to the players to prepare themselves for the Asian Under-21 hockey championship which would be held in Hyderabad Deccan, India, in July.

He said all the players were fit and looking forward to the tour.

Jahangir added that he along with coaches Kamran Ashraf and Danish Kaleem tried to improve the grey areas of the team particularly goalkeeping and deep defence during the training camp in Karachi.

The manager said the performance of the forward line was satisfactory in Malaysia as they had scored the highest number of 21 field goals. He added that he wanted to further improve the goal scoring capability of the team.

Squad:

Goalkeepers: Imran Shah, Imran Butt.

Full-backs: Mohammad Ateeq, Kashif Ali, Imran Abbas.

Half-backs: Mohammad Irfan, Zaheer Ahmad, Amir Shahzad, Fareed Ahmad, Khurram Shahzad, Amir Shahzad.

Forwards: Adeel Hussain, Shafqat Rasool (captain), Inyatullah, Abdul Haseem Khan (vice-captain), Mohammad Zubair, Nasir Shahzad, Rizwan Ahmad, Mohammad Taufeeq.

Officials: Jahangir Butt (manager/chief coach); Kamran Ashraf, Danish Kaleem (coaches); Irshad Haider (trainer/video analyst); Nadeem Sarwar (physio).—APP