Great Britain have received a late call-up to compete in the 2007 Champions Trophy. The event has been switched at short notice to Kuala Lumpur (Nov 29-Dec 9) after several countries indicated they were not prepared to play in the original venue of Lahore because of the Pakistani political situation. Traditionally the event is for the world’s top six countries but it will, on this occasion, be an eight nation round robin. The original six countries, Australia, Germany, Holland, Korea, Pakistan and Spain will compete. Pakistan were not eligible except as hosts but the International Hockey Federation have decided to include them as some compensation for them no longer being hosts. Britain would have replaced them on the strength of England’s 5th place at the 2006 World Cup, while lowly ranked Malaysia come in as the new hosts. Britain, Germany and Malaysia have yet to qualify for the Beijing Olympics and will consider themselves very lucky to get the opportunity of match practice against the world’s best sides before their respective final qualifiers.
