National hockey coach of Bangladesh Naveed Alam has chalked out a plan for the betterment of his players and the national team and is looking forward to implement them soon.
Naveed visited Chittagong, Rangpur, and BKSP in the last month and also arranged an open trial at the Maulana Bhashani National Hockey Stadium three days ago. The four phases of the trial process saw Naveed select around 110 players for three different levels - U-18, U-21 and the ‘A’ team. “There are a lot of talented players and they will be enrolled in the different levels. The concluding note of the process is that we now we know how many players are there and how many we can insert into the process.
“The idea is to form the back-up of the national team, to prepare the players who will be ready to take the responsibilities of the national team when they mature. I want to start my camp with 50 boys and after three weeks, we will re-asses their progress. The training will be held on a phase by phase basis,” said the former Pakistan national team player.
Naveed said he wants to continue the camp with the youngsters before the camp for the Asian Games qualifiers commences. “The youngsters will be going through the camp and I will ask the federation to arrange the presence of the players who have been a part of the national team for special fitness programs. This program will make the players fit and save valuable time in the time,” said Naveed.
Bangladesh Hockey Federation suspended four national player - forward Rasel Mahmud Jimmy, midfielder Kamruzzaman Rana, defender Imran Hasan Pintoo and goalkeeper Zahid Hossain - on disciplinary grounds after Bangladesh’s disastrous campaign in the Asia Cup. Bangladesh finished seventh out of eight in the premier continental hockey meet. With all four players regarded as unreliable for national duty, it will be interesting to see how the federation and the team management fill the vacuum.
Moreover the hockey arena remained troubled with three leading clubs - Mohammedan, Mariner and Wari - declining to participate in the premier division hockey league. A number of national players were supposed to play for these clubs and they may have to sit idle during the hockey season that starts next week.
