LAHORE, Feb 6 (APP)- The selection committee of Pakistan Hockey Federation has announced the final 18 member squad for FIH World Cup to be play from February 28 to March 13 in New Delhi, India.Zeeshan Ashraf will lead the team as captain which sees the come back of goal keeper Salman Akbar dropped on disciplinary basis after the tour of Argentina where the team participated in Champions Challenge Cup in December last year.Salman was overlooked for two match series held in Abu Dhabi.
The announced team is Nasir Ahmad and Salman Akbar (Goal Keepers), Zeeshan Ashraf, Sohail Abbas and Muhammad Rashid (Full Backs), Muhammad Irfan, Waseem Ahmad, Muhammad Imran, Fareed Ahmad and Sajjad Anwar (Halves), Rehan Butt, Shakeel Abbasi, Abdul Haseem Khan, Muhammad Zubair, Akhtar Ali, Omer Bhutta, Abbas Haider and Muhammad Rizwan (Forwards). Muhammad Asif Bajwa will be the team manager, Shahid Ali Khan (Coach), Shafqat Malik and Wouter Tazelaar (Assistant Coaches), Jos Geijsel (Physical Trainer), Nadeem Khan Lodhi (Video Analyst) and Faiz Ur Rehman will be the Physio.
The team was named after two-day trials which concluded on Saturday after three sessions of trials participated by twenty four camp trainees.Players were watched on different specialised positions.
The five member selection committee headed by Hasan Sardar,Khalid Bashir,Farhat Khan ,Rana Mujahid and Mohammad Shafiq.President,Pakistan Hockey Federation, Qasim Zia and Secretary PFH ,Muhammad Asif Bajwa were also present “We have good hopes that this combination will deliver to our expectations in the event and we are expecting that the team will reach the semi finals in India “,said Hasan after the trials while naming the squad.
He said the team gained high profile experience by playing Holland and team management worked really hard to overcome the gray areas noticed during the two matches.
“Our first aim is to beat India in our pool match and I firmly believe that victory will add to the confidence of our team and to better in coming leagues matches”,he said adding “ We are confident that team will make step by step progress in the event to come upto the expectations “.
He said the team is full of talent and potential to produce good results any top leading of hockey world and best available talent was selected after a transparent way of selection.
Associated Press of Pakistan
