PHF announced probable squad for the European tour, Zeeshan Ashraf left out: Hockey News
On May 20, the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) announced a list of 26 players that will attend the preparatory camp set for the upcoming international event.
This camp will be set at the Naseer Bunda Hockey Stadium in Islamabad from May 30 and will train the players for several events including a four-nation tournament in Dublin, Ireland from June 20-25. The four-nation tournament in Amsterdam is to be held from
June 28 – July 2 and a Test series against several Europe-based hockey teams.
This month-long Europe tour has been planned by the PHF in order to get the national team prepared for the 2011 New Delhi Champions Trophy in December and 2012 London Olympics Games.
In this context, it was surprising to find that the team captain of the gold-medal winning team at the 2010 Asian Games, Zeeshan Ashraf was left out of the list.
This former captain previously chose to skip the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in order to represent Pakistan in huge events like Champions Trophy, World Cup and Olympics. However, the newly appointed captain, Muhammad Imran had proven good leadership at the Malaysian
Invitational by bringing home a silver medal after a head-to-head fight with the World Number One, Australia, losing the final at 3-2 score.
Therefore, the PHF has thought over and allowed the new leader to continue with the captaincy for the next international events too.
Moreover, Ashraf went wrong with his step when the PHF announced that the central contracts were only to be given to those players who had proven their fitness in the previously held camp for the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup.
In the meantime, the PHF Secretary Asif Bajwa also believed that no player can be named as a permanent captain of the national team.
“Let Imran first make it to the team and then we’ll see if he should be named captain again or not.Yes, we are satisfied with his performance and conduct. He may even be the next best choice for the position of skipper as Zeeshan has got himself out of the
picture.”
The former Olympian continued, “Still I cannot say that you will see Imran as a permanent captain since we believe that one has to perform to the best of his abilities at all times.”
The 26 probables that were named by the federation yesterday consist of Shakeel Abbasi, Mohammad Waqas, Syed Kashif Shah, Abdul Haseem Khan, Mohammad Rizwan Senior, Mohammad Irfan Jr., Mohammad Tousiq, Mohammad Imran Jr., Waqas Akbar, Sohail Abbas, Ali Shan,
Mohammad Zubair, Mohammad Irfan, Mohammad Rizwan Junior, Salman Akbar, Shafqat Rasool, Kashif Javaid, Rashid Mahmood, Imran Shah, Waseem Ahmed, Mohammad Umar Bhutta, Faisal Qadir, Fareed Ahmed, Rehan Butt, Akhtar Ali and Mohammad Imran.
Tags: