Junior hockey team’s training camp concludes

KARACHI: Pakistan junior hockey team’s training camp in Karachi at Abdul Sattar Edhi hockey stadium ended on Saturday.

The players will participate in the Chief Minister Hockey Gold Cup Hockey tournament which is to be held in Quetta from March 23 to April 2, ‘The News’ has learnt.

The PHF will decide the schedule of the next phase of their training after Chief Minister Hockey Gold Cup.

The national junior team is to participate in Junior Asia Cup 2020-21 in Dhaka from June 1-10.

PHF wanted to involve all the players of the junior team in rigorous competitions at domestic level as there is no international competiton because of Covid-19.

Sources said that all four provincial teams and departmental teams are expected to participate in the Quetta tournament.

The probable players of senior and junior teams will represent their provincial and departmental teams in the tournament.

The sources said that PHF has already planned that cycle of domestic hockey competitions would continue throughout the year with strict enforcement of Covid-19 protocols, so that all leading players of the country remain fit and in form.

Sources said that PHF is also planning to organise another domestic competition during Ramadan in Gojra. The matches will be organised at night and all leading domestic teams and their players will participate in the event. The details of this event will be announced when its schedule is finalised.

The sources said that PHF wanted to organise an eight-nation Asian event before the Junior Asia Cup so that the players of all teams get high quality practice of international hockey. But due to surge in cases of Covid-19 PHF is not much hopeful about it, sources said.