THT Taking On the Big Guns in 2013 MHL

The 2013 Malaysian Hockey League (MHL) will see Terengganu having a representative for the first time since the participation of Kuala Terengganu Municipal Council carried the flag for the state in the early days of the competition.

The Terengganu Hockey Team (THT) will be seen as one of the favourites to do well in the MHL as they managed to get six Malaysian internationals from defending champions, Kuala Lumpur Hockey Club (KLHC).

The six are: Mohamad Shahrun Nabil, Tengku Ahmad Tajuddin, Ismail Abu, Mohamad Ameerullah Aziz, Fitri Saari and last season MHL Best Player, Azlan Misron.

They will combine their skills and experience with nine players from the victorious Terengganu SUKMA squad which won the gold medal in the 2012 games held in Kuantan, Pahang.

Apart from these players the team will be enhanced by two foreign players who are yet to be identified by the team management.

However, THT will not have it easy as other more experienced teams feel they will need time to gel. That was the view of Nur Saiful Zaini Nasaruddin, the assistant manager of Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) whom will be THT opponent in the opening fixture.

Nur Saiful believes his side familiarity with one another will be the key to their success this season. In addition they have recruited two good players in Mohamad Marhan Jalil and Mohamad Ramadhan Rosli.

TNB will be without any foreign player this season and so will UniKL. However, the latter's coach, Arul Selvaraj will not be unfazed as he believes his charges who are mostly from the national juniors squad are capable of playing good hockey and will do well to finish in the top six of the MHL to qualify for the knock-out stage.

Meanwhile, defending champions KLHC are not worried about losing the six national players to THT as they have brought in five Pakistanis internationals into their squad.

Five goals hero for Pakistan in the recent Sultan Azlan Shah Cup, Muhammad Imran will be combining with his compatriots Waseem Ahmad, Fareed Ahmad, Muhammad Umar Bhutta and Akhtar Ali. They will be joined by Australian international, Tim Deavin.

KLHC coach, K.Dharmaraj is very positive about his team chances in grabbing all the three titles at stake. Despite that he will take a game by game approach in order not to be caught off-guard by his opponents.

Other teams vying for the Premier Division title are Maybank, Nur Insafi Warriors and Sapura. The three of them also strengthened their squad by engaging foreign players who are mostly from Pakistan.

Maybank will be relying on the services of former skipper of Pakistan, Shakeel Abassi and his compatriots: Muhammad Irfan, Muhammad Waqas and Shafqat Rasool in the tournament.

Sapura also opted for a Pakistanis flavour with a dash of Indian with the signings of Khasif Ali, Yasir Islam and Muhammad Zubair from Pakistan while India's Raja Veerachamy completing the foreign quartet in the team.

Six Pakistan players have also been signed by Nur Insafi Warriors for this season campaign. They are Nasir Ahmad, Abdul Asim Khan, Shazad Amir, Imran Muhammad, Hussain Muhammad Salman and Ateeq Muhammad.

The Division One title will be competed by Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Bukit Jalil Sports School (BJSS), UNiTEN KPT, Sunday 20/30, Tengku Mohamad Ismail Sports School (SSTMI), TNB Thunderbolts and MBI.


...