That is the list of national trainees for the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup as released by the Malaysian Hockey Confederation secretariat this afternoon.
Training commenced this morning and only these players turned up - S. Kumar, Roslan Jamaluddin, Baljit Singh, Mohd Amin Rahim, Muhammad Azammi Adabi, Izwan Firdaus Ahmad Tajuddin, Azreen Rizal Nasir, Mohammad Izzat Mohd Rahim, Mohd Marhan Mohd Jalil, Nabil Fiqri Mohd Nor and Mohd Hairi Abdul Rahman.
Five of them are with the national juniors and some are said to have yet to get release from their classes as they are either in colleges/universities.
And for those who chose to believe that the stories were made up by this blog and a leading English daily, below is just one comment of the coach on a player - position and name of player with held.
"A disappointing performance at the OQ. His performance is taking a dip compared to when he first joined the team. He appears to be having problems to sustain play at high tempo. This could be the cold conditions as per Asian Champions Trophy and CC1. The effects of smoking are the most likely cause. He has to improve on his strength and fitness in order to be more effective and retain his place."
So if the coach knew these problems since Asian Champions Trophy, why was this player not dropped?
