LAHORE, Oct 16 Retaining Zeeshan Ashraf as captain on Friday, the national hockey selection committee named an 18-member Pakistan squad for the next month's World Cup qualifiers which will be held in France.

Full-back Mohammad Imran was named as Zeeshan's deputy.

Four key players namely Rehan Butt, Salman Akbar, Wasim Ahmad and Abbas Hyder also appeared in the one-day trials which were held at the National Hockey Stadium on Friday. They flew in the city from Europe on Thursday night where they are engaged with various leagues.

They will leave back to rejoin their respective European clubs on Saturday and will join the team in France directly later.

Chief selector Hasan Sardar said it was the best possible team that could be picked from the country and hopefully it would win the qualifiers to enter the next year's World Cup, to be held in India.

He added that the team is a fine combination of junior and senior players.

Meanwhile, Rehan Butt said that he and his three colleagues have been playing league hockey in Europe and that's why they are in good form and satisfied the selectors to get their places in the national team.

Three other players namely Tariq Aziz, Sibtain Raza and Zeeshan Ali who were part of the originally planned European tour which was later cancelled due to visa problems, could not find place in the side.Tariq, in fact, is likely to face a six months ban as he used banned substances to overcome fitness problems.

Squad

Salman Akbar, Nasir Ahmad, Zeeshan Ashraf (captain), Mohammad Imran (vice-captain), Sohail Abbas, Abbas Hyder, Waseem Ahmad, Fareed Ahmad, M Irfan, Sajjad Anwar, M Rashid, Rehan Butt, Haseem Khan, Shakeel Abbasi, Shafqat Rasool, Waqas Sharif, Mohammad Zubair, Akhtar Ali.