PHF meeting today to discuss senior, junior teams’ training, matches

KARACHI: An important meeting of Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) will be held on Wednesday (today) in Lahore to decide the schedule of training camps of Pakistan senior and Junior teams, selection of players for the camps and the schedule of proposed 12 matches between Pakistan Whites and Juniors, ‘The News’ learnt on Tuesday.

PHF sources said that all decisions would be taken keeping in mind the COVID-19 situation in the country.

The sources said that PHF secretary Olympian Asif Bajwa would chair the meeting and chairman national selection committee Manzoor Junior would also participate in the meeting.

The national selection committee members watched all the matches of qualifying rounds of national championship in Lahore, all matches of national championship in Rawalpindi, as well as national under-16 championship in Peshawar. The selection committee members will pick 25 players each for the two camps.

Pakistan senior and junior teams are to play some important international tournaments next year and both teams have not played international matches for a long time. Thus, these camps and the 12 matches are very significant for Pakistan hockey.

Pakistan senior team will participate in the Asian hockey championship in March 2021 in Bangladesh. Pakistan junior team will participate in Junior Asia Cup 2021 of which schedule is yet to be decided by Asian Hockey Federation (ASF). The Junior Asia Cup 2021 is the qualifying round for Junior World Cup 2022.

Sources said that 12 matches between Pakistan Whites and Juniors would be an important assignment as the Green-shirts are to compete against tough opponents like India, Japan, South Korea and Malaysia.

These matches would be organised in Punjab, Sindh and KP. PHF would also discuss the possibility of organising a couple of matches in Balochistan in the meeting, the sources said.

It is expected that the selection committee keeping in mind the future requirements will prefer young and emerging talented players who played well in the national championship and other domestic events.

The schedule of the training camps, names of the players and the schedule of 12 matches series would be announced after approval by the PHF president Brig (rtd) Khalid Khokar, the sources said.