LAHORE - Chief selector former hockey Olympian Islahuddin Siddique on Friday announced the 18-member Pakistan team for the Hockey Series Open scheduled from December 17 to 22 here at the National Hockey Stadium.
The Hockey Series Open is an FIH event and the four nations competing are Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Nepal, said PHF spokesman here. Since, Pakistan has been selected for the FIH Pro League, the high-profile new event starting from early 2019, the Pakistan side here is not the national side and it will enter as the President XI. “Importantly, the matches played by the President XI against the other sides will only be considered friendly games and will not carry any points towards the event,” he said.
The other four sides will be competing against each other in real terms. President XI: Muneebur Rehman & Hafiz Umair (goalkeepers), Abid Bhatti, M Ammar, Samiullah & Mubashar Jibran (defenders), Usman Ghani, Mohibullah, Ali Raza (Gojra) & Asif Hanif (midfielders), Zaheer Hussain, Abdul Mannan, Murtaza Yaqoob, Awaisur Rehman (captain), Qamar Bhukhari, Arsalan Haider, Zulqarnain & Mohsin Khan (forwards).
PHF President Brig (R) Khalid Sajjad Khokhar has also named the officials for the President XI, who are Shahid Parvez Bhandara (manager) and Kashif Jawad and Muhammad Shabbir (coaches).