Lausanne [Switzerland], October 26 (ANI): After the Pakistan Hockey Federation had notified the International Hockey Federation (FIH) that they had not accepted the invitation to participate in the upcoming FIH Hockey Men's Junior World Cup Tamil Nadu 2025, after their team had qualified for this event at the Asia Junior Cup last year.

The Men's Junior team of Oman will now join the list of participating teams for this event that will take place from 28 November to 10 December 2025 in the cities of Chennai and Madurai, India, according to a press release from FIH.

Oman joined as the next-highest-placed team in the continental championship (Junior Asia Cup 2024), qualifying for this Junior World Cup.

For the very first time, the FIH Hockey Junior World Cups 2025, women and men, will involve 24 teams each, enabling greater accessibility to FIH events, which is one of the fundamental principles of the FIH Empowerment and Engagement strategy.

Germany won the last edition in 2023, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the FIH press release added.

Earlier this year, Pakistan's Men's Hockey Team did not participate in the recently concluded Asia Cup Hockey in Rajgir, Bihar, which took place from August 29 to September 7, citing security reasons. In their place, Bangladesh participated in the competition. Oman too decided against participation, with Kazakhstan taking their place in the competition.

Speaking about Cricket, the Pakistan Women's Cricket Team didn't travel to India for the ongoing ICC Women's World Cup 2025 and played all the games of the competition at Colombo's R. Premadasa Stadium as Sri Lanka is a co-host of the mega event. (ANI)