LAHORE, June 6 The Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) has decided to rest four senior players for the upcoming three-match series against England in order to blend more youngsters in the side while assistant coach Kamran Ashraf has been replaced by Shahbaz Junior for the tour, mainly due to the former's poor performance in Asia Cup.

The four seniors namely Sohail Abbas, Mohammad Saqlain, Rehan Butt and Shakeel Abbasi did not feature among the 22 probables invited for the training camp starting here from Monday.

Commenting on the decision of giving rest to senior players, PHF secretary Asif Bajwa said that the series would provide an opportunity to test more youngsters in a bid to groom back-up players.

“While the senior players proved their worth by doing well in the Asia Cup, the PHF is trying to groom younger players to build-up the reserve strength,” he explained.

Bajwa, who has also been retained as the manager of the Pakistan team, avoided to comment on the decision of replacing Kamran Ashraf but sources close to the team said that he had termed the performance of the assistant coach as below par during the last Asia Cup in Malaysia in his report to the PHF.

Sources added that Kamran's preference to his PIA duties and lack of interest during the training camp for the Asia Cup last April did not go down well with the PHF President Qasim Zia.

Bajwa, however, told newsmen that since Kamran's assignment ended with the Asia Cup, the PHF decided to change bring in Shahbaz Junior as replacement.

He said that besides the England series, Wales and Ireland had also shown interest in playing at least one Test each during the tour.

“Negotiations are underway with both Wales and Ireland and hopefully Pakistan will play one Test each against them,” Bajwa said.

He claimed the national team could be better prepared for international events after playing against England, Wales and Ireland. “We can test different combinations and strategies against these countries in order to prepare a tough team for the World Cup qualifiers.”

He said that the final trials to select the team for the tour will be held on June 25 and the squad will depart for the UK on June 28.

Probables

Zeeshan Ashraf, Waseem Ahmad, Muhammad Imran, Zeeshan Ali, Tariq Aziz, Akhtar Ali, Ehsan Ullah Khan, Nasir Ahmad, Salman Akbar, Sajjad Anwar, Kashif Ali, Amir Shahzad, Muhammad Irfan, Fareed Ahmad, Muhammad Rashid, Waqas Sharif, Inayat Ullah Khan, Abdul Haseem Khan, Shafqat Rasool, Muhammad Zubair, Abbas Haider and Imran Butt.