Pakistan hockey team's fitness level improves ahead of FIH Nations Cup

Pakistan hockey team's trainer Nasrullah Rana is satisfied with the fitness level of the players, who are undergoing training for the FIH Hockey Men’s Nations Cup slated to be held in Kuala Lumpur from June 15-21.

“As per the current circumstances, the situation of federation and lack of the required exposure of the boys, the team has the best possible fitness level,” Nasrullah told Nukta in an interview from Islamabad.

“You know, it’s a short camp of four weeks. We use a technical term ‘aerobic power’ under which a player has to keep his sustainability for 15 minutes. It means that a player will play for 15 minutes, followed by three minutes rest, then will play for 15 minutes and followed by three minutes rest and so on for 60 minutes. We have improved the fitness level with this combination. Some players were weak and they were given separate sessions. And we have brought them to the level and now they are able to play for 60 minutes,” said Nasrullah, who is also a senior official of the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB).

“I would highlight a point that when the team plays badly under pressure people say that its fitness level is not good. They don’t understand this point. A player gets down under pressure and that is something different and any team can take pressure. The pressure slows down the body response and when a player is physically not fit you will see him in all matches that he is not fit,” Nasrullah explained.

Passion is key

“Maintaining fitness should be the responsibility of the players. The players, who train with passion like Rana Waheed, Ghazanfar Ali and Ammad Butt, so they are fine. They are, too, passionate about their training and keeping themselves super fit. They don’t stop,” Nasrullah conceded.

“They are always in the leading role,” he was quick to add.

“Some players are not motivated and that’s dangerous and handling such athletes is too tough,” he said.

“It’s not easy to impart training to a team when you have just four weeks at your disposal. If you give me six months camp with some breaks and if players climb on mountains, similar to the sort of training that is conducted at Kakul, they will become better athletes,” he added.

Nasrullah is not going with the team to Kuala Lumpur but he is hopeful that the players will not face fitness issues.

“Without a permanent trainer the things will not be so impactful,” he stressed.

This is the third time that the Nations Cup is being held. South Africa had won the first edition in 2022 which it had hosted and Pakistan had claimed seventh position in that event.

New Zealand then lifted the title of the 2024 edition in Poland where the Green-Shirts had ended fourth.

In this month’s Kuala Lumpur FIH Nations Cup eight teams are set to compete. France, South Africa, Korea and Wales were placed in Group A while Pakistan, New Zealand, Malaysia and Japan are in Group B.

The top two teams from each pool will qualify for the semi-finals.

The winners of the event will qualify for the FIH Pro League.

Olympian Tahir Zaman is the head coach of the team while Ammad Butt is the captain.

Pakistan squad:

Ammad Butt (captain), Muneeb-Ur-Rehman, Abdullah Ishtiaq, Muhammad Abdullah, Muhammad Sufyan Khan, Abdul Manan, Hammad Anjum, Arshad Liaquat, Moin Shakeel, Zakariya Hayat, Ghazanfar Ali, Salman Razzaq, Junaid Manzoor, Abdul Hannan Shahid, Rana Waheed, Afraz Khan, Abdul Rahman, Ahmad Nadeem, Mohib Ullah, Rana Waleed.