KARACHI: Pakistan’s newly-appointed hockey captain, Sohail Abbas, thinks Pakistan has the potential to win a gold medal at the upcoming London Olympics.

Talking before leaving for Malaysia to participate in the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup, Abbas said the team will work hard and do their best at the Olympics.

“We have a very good chance of winning the gold in the Olympics. I am confident that we will put in maximum effort in training and that will be visible through our performance,” the penalty-corner specialist said while talking to PakPassion.net.

He added that the team was confident and they are continuously trying to improve their game.

“We are confident that as a team we will perform well and will strive to improve our rankings to be in the top four.”

The 34-year old said that the recently-concluded training camp had not been very beneficial as some of the players could not attend due to the junior Asia Cup in Malaysia.

“The camp went well. There was a slight hurdle, as several of our youngsters were missing so unfortunately we couldn’t really hold a camp with all the players we wanted to as some are still in Malaysia.”

However, he said that the players who did take part in the camp worked hard and will be training with the rest of the players in Malaysia for five days which will help them gel together.

Talking about the blue turf at the Azlan Shah Cup, Abbas said he was not really bothered about it as the team will have about five days to get adjusted to it.

“It's not really a problem. But we have never practiced or played in such conditions. Also, they will use yellow balls. Obviously, these things will call for some adjusting to the play conditions. However, I am confident that if we are able to train for four to five days, we should be able to get accustomed to these conditions fairly easily.”