KARACHI: Pakistan’s national hockey coach, Shahid Ali Khan said on Thursday that his main focus for the upcoming training camp will be to ensure improvement in the team’s defence for better results in the future, particularly the World Cup.
“My main objective in coming days is to concentrate towards strengthening team’s defence as lack of it has emerged to be a constant problem,” he told APP in an interview here at Hockey Club of Pakistan Stadium.
“Mistakes by defenders and in deep defence let us down in Salta. We could have won the Champions Challenge Cup but crucial mistakes in the final cost us dearly,” he added.
“Besides this we must improve our penalty corner conversion rate and at the same time improve our defence on the short corners,” he commented.
“We unfortunately lost to New Zealand in the final after playing well throughout the competition,” said the coach.
Khan praised the forward line but added that they needed to generate more attacks and must improve their scoring powers.
He said goalkeeper Salman Akbar, halfback Wasim Ahmed and forward Rehan Butt showed lack of form as they joined the team just before the departure to Argentina.
Forwards Shafqat Rasool and Abbas Hyder can still make a comeback in the team if they showed in the training camp, the coach said.
Khan said Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) was making efforts to arrange more international matches before World Cup in New Delhi.
He said that PHF Secretary, Asif Bajwa has approached Australian Hockey officials for playing a few games in United Arab Emirates.
He said two match series against the Netherlands in Doha (Qatar) will be highly beneficial for the Pakistan team.
Khan said there are chances that the first phase of national training camp may be held in Sialkot from January 5 or 6 where a new turf has been installed. —APP
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