Juniors to host Scotland after Chennai trip is cancelled

The national junior hockey team's playing tour to Chennai scheduled for Feb 16-24 has been cancelled.

The Malaysian Hockey Federation (MHF) secretary, Hashim Mohd Yusoff, said that they had to make the cancellation because the Indian junior team were not able to play matches against their Malaysian counterparts.

“They will be involved in a three-nation tournament with Spain and Belgium during the same period in Chennai,” he said.

“Our juniors need exposure as part of their preparations for the 2009 Junior World Cup Finals. However, the good news is Scotland will be coming here to train from Feb 24 to March 5 and they have requested to play some friendly matches against our juniors.”

Malaysia are co-hosting the Junior World Cup Finals with Singapore and Hashim added that the South Korean team would also be here from March 11-23 to play friendly matches against the national juniors.

Beginning on Jan 4, seven friendly matches against the New South Wales juniors have been lined up for the team.

There are 32 players in the training squad and coach V. Muralidharan will use the matches to finalise an 18-member team for an eight-nation tournament scheduled for Jan 17-27 at the National Hockey Stadium in Bukit Jalil.

The teams invited for the tournament are Australia, Germany, Holland, India, Pakistan, South Korea and New Zealand.

The national juniors have been barred from playing in the ongoing national Under-21 tournament in Bukit Jalil.

Hashim added that the competitions committee would meet on Jan 5 to decide on whether the juniors would be release to play in the Malaysian Junior Hockey League (MJHL), which begins on Feb 4.

“The closing date for the MJHL is Jan 17 and we hope to see more teams in the fray,” he said.

A record 23 teams took part in the league this year. Nine teams featured in Division One and 14 teams played in a two-group preliminaries in Division Two.

Hashim added that the competitions committee at the meeting would also decide on the hosts of the national Under-14 and Under-16 tournaments.