Slamming the door on Pakistan, the ad-hoc committee for Indian hockey on Friday said New Zealand has confirmed their participation in the Punjab Gold Cup hockey tournament to be held in Chandigarh from January 31.

Co-convenor of ad-hoc committee Rajiv Mehta said that they have received a communication late on Thursday from Hockey New Zealand, saying they would be more than willing to send their national team for the four-nation event.

"New Zealand has confirmed their participation in the Punjab Gold Cup and they have already sent their team list," Mehta said.

The 22-member Kiwi team including four officials will reach here on January 29 en route to Chandigarh.

Pakistan was supposed to join Beijing Olympic gold medallist Germany, the Netherlands and host India for the tournament before the Mumbai terror attacks strained Indo-Pak sporting ties.

Even though Pakistan Hockey Federation was keen to send a team for the tournament, they decided to leave the final decision to the Foreign Office there.

The ad-hoc committee here insists Pakistan neither conveyed their willingness nor their inability to participate in the event.

"We didn't get any official confirmation from Pakistan," ad-hoc committee Media Adviser Anupam Gulati said.

Asked what the organisers would do if the Pakistan government gives green signal to the team to tour India, Gulati said, "We will take up the matter when it comes but so far nothing has come to us."

Meanwhile, former Olympian and Director of Punjab Sports Department Pargat Singh said they have dropped Jalandhar as a venue because of unavailability of quality astro-turf in the Surjit Singh Memorial Stadium.

"Yes, we have dropped Jalandhar as a venue because the astro-turf there is not of international standards," Pargat said.

"The astro-turf in the stadium was laid in 2000 and because of maximum use by local teams, the turf has patches all over it. I don't want the matches to be played in such conditions," he said.

Asked why it took so long to take the decision, considering the fact they more or less knew it would not be possible to lay new turf in such short period, Pargat said, "The decision to drop Jalandhar was taken in the last week of November, the day I realised it would not materialise. We have floated new tenders for laying of the surface."

The former India skipper said although Jalandhar won't host the matches, the format of the tournament will remain unchanged.

"The format will remain the same. It will be a double leg tournament and now Chandigarh will host both the legs," said Pargat.