Pakistan Hockey Captain Rehan Butt Sunday expressed his optimism about his team's chances in the upcoming 7th Asia Cup Hockey Championship being held in the Indian city of Chennai from August 31 to September 9.
"Team was showing improvement and boys have worked diligently on their grey areas to bring glory to the country," he told in an interview on the eve of the departure of the team.
"Team has shown some improvement in the Beijing tournament. We held Olympic Champion Australia and Asian Games gold medallist China level in their matches and that showed an upward trend," Rehan Butt, 27, who had scored 79 goal in 194 Internationals said.
"Pakistan last won the Asia Cup in 1989 and team was eager to accomplished the feat after 18 years," he maintained.
"Its difficult to bring perfection in any sports. However each and every member of the team was making an endeavour to bring improvement and revive hockey with good performances," he remarked.
"We need consistency in all departments of the game. Our attack and defence should work together, there should be equal contribution by the forwards and short corner strikers to achieve a winning objective," he pointed out.
He said among the young forwards Waqas Zafar, Waqas Sharif, Muhammad Arshad and Yasir Islam are more confident and that was a good sign.
He added that with the blessings of Allah he feels no problems in making it into the semi-final. "Malaysia and Japan are two teams in our group which can offer us challenge in the race for the semis spot," he said.
Pakistan team is due to leave for Chennai on Air Lanka flight en-route Mumbai and Colombo Sunday mid-night to feature in 11-nation competition.
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