ABBOTTABAD, July 1: Sohail Abbas was named as captain of Pakistan’s hockey team for the upcoming London Games as the chairman of Pakistan Hockey Federation’s (PHF) selection committee Hanif Khan announced a 20-man provisional squad here on Sunday.

Two players from the list will be dropped for Pakistan’s final 18-member squad which will leave for London on July 10 for their pre-Olympic warm-ups.

The announcement was made after a one-day trial here at the Abbottabad Hockey Stadium on Sunday where Hanif, along with his committee members Khalid Bashir and Arshad Chaudhry were in attendance. Also present were PHF president Qasim Zia and secretary Asif Bajwa.

Hanif Khan said that the team was selected after consultation with Sohail Abbas and coach Akhtar Rasool with Waqas Shareef being named as the vice-captain.

“This is the best squad from the available lot,” Hanif said. “There was a healthy competition among players and fitness and recent form were the main criteria for selection.”

Qasim Zia, meanwhile, was optimistic about the Olympic assignment.

“I hope that we surprise people at the Olympics and our performance can raise expectations,” he said. “This is the best available lot in Pakistan with majority of the players in the age-bracket of 22-25 years and I hope that they will help us in reviving our glorious past.”

Qasim added that since foreign teams have not been touring Pakistan, there has been a severe lack of international exposure for the players.

“We [the PHF] has had to incur huge expenses to give international experience to our players by sending them abroad on our limited resources,” he said, adding that the PHF are striving for the improvement of hockey infrastructure in the country.

“We are trying to meet this challenge.”

Coach Akhtar Rasool said that he is hopeful for a good showing at the forthcoming Games.

“We will focus our full attention on the first match [against Spain] which will help us build up for the tournament,” he said.

Provisional squad: Goal-keepers: Imran Shah, Imran Butt; Full-backs: Mohammad Irfan, Sohail Abbas, Kashif Shah and Muhammad Imran; Half-backs: Rizwan Junior, Fareed Ahmed, Rashid Mehmood, Touseeq and Waseem Ahmed; Forwards: Waqas Shareef, Umer Bhutta, Shakeel Abbasi, Haseen Khan, Mohammad Zubair, Rizwan Senior, Shafqat Rasool, Rehan Butt and Ali Shan.