August 9, 2002	Friday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 29,1423

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The 1976 Montreal Olympic champions, New Zealand, rewrote Pakistan hockey history by recording their first-ever victory over Pakistan by a tennis score of 7-1 at the Manchester Commonwealth Games and the defeat totally left the nation in a daze.

Everybody has been shell-shocked except three officials of Pakistan Hockey Federations (PHF) secretary, Brig Musarratullah Khan, Col Abdul Rauf, manager-designate of the junior team and selector Brig Khalid Khokhar who are shamelessly justifying the humiliation and as usual blaming the past set ups.

Pakistan had nothing at stake in Manchester Games and instead of infusing new blood in the team recalled old guards either with the sole aim of winning a minor title or falling into the trap of hockey mafia which has been the sole cause of destruction of the sport in the country.

The hockey rot started prior to Atlanta Olympics when leading players of the team revolted against the establishment. The rebels were given leeway instead of being crushed. As a result, the hockey mafia became more powerful.

Tahir Zaman as coach of the junior team had failed to make the juniors qualify for the final round of the Junior World Cup. Tahir, instead of showing dedication or devotion to national prestige manipulated the recall of Ahmad Alam and Kamran Ashraf in the team though they are spent force.

Two junior players after the Spanish tour were discarded from the official squad. Kamran was retained when there was hardly any justification for his selection in the presence of Kashif Jawwad and the dummy selectors watched mafia dictating terms from a safe distance.

The PHF has been playing the game of musical chair in the selection of coaches and managers. They had just a short list of Islahuddin Siddiqui, Shahnaz Sheikh, Samiullah, Shahbaz Ahmad, Tahir Zaman, Hanif Khan and Ayaz Mahmood.

They are either coach, manager or selectors. When they are not in power or say in the mainstream they talk tall and make everyone believe that they are the wisest men but when they are saddled into power they just fall in the trap of the mafia and come out with lame excuses.

Everytime a new coach or manager takes over, he comes out with new plans. Some claim to be training the team on 4-2-4 system like European football, some work out the strategy of playing with 3-3-4 but every experiment has failed.

The Asian hockey which ruled supreme for decades has an established system of 5-3-2 which helped Pakistan win Asian Games, World Cup and Olympic titles. It has been proved beyond doubt that the 5-3-2 system is time proven and Pakistan and India always won with this old system. Any deviation from it has resulted in disaster for both the sub-continent teams.

Ever since the emergence of Sohail Abbas as a specialist penalty-corner striker, Pakistan has been relying only on him to ensure victories. It seems as if Pakistan is sending a one-man squad who will single handedly demolish every opposition.

One would like to ask the PHF, how many times, world’s renowned penalty-corner strikers like Paul Litjens and Bouvalander helped Holland win the World Cup or Olympic.

Holland started winning World Cup and Olympic titles after they retired. Same can be said about Michael Peter of Germany. Simply relying on one individual cannot make any team world champions.

Pakistan’s misfortune is that Sohail, though has specialised in one department of the game he has failed to improve his field play.

Sohail may improve his individual record of being Pakistan’s highest scorer but it is of no use to the team’s cause. It is not an individual game which counts in team game. So total dependence on Sohail is also one of the reasons of our failures.

He may score hat tricks in matches against weaker teams but his performance against formidable teams has not been outstanding in conversion of penalty-corners. Against stronger teams his field play has been one of the reasons for Pakistan’s failure.

Coaches and players of the same age group of same batch who play together and one day one of the player becomes coach like Tahir cannot maintain discipline.

Players playing together have different relationship. When one of them gets administrative power it is just not possible to discipline his colleagues. This is the biggest problem, which the present Pakistan team has and it may be one of the reasons for disgraceful defeat at Manchester.

The president of the PHF, Gen Aziz, who is preoccupied with his professional duties must have worked out a strategy to rely on Brig Musarratullah who has definitely failed to apprise his boss.

The only other source of information to the PHF chief is another serving brigadier Khalid Khokhar whose track record shows that he is only interested in making full use of his status in the present regime making overseas trips.

Brig Khokhar was never been sportsman of merit then how come he had become authority on hockey, boxing and tennis which are all different ball games, It is anybody’s guess.

Now it is time that the PHF chief finds some time to assess the whole situation and not rely on people who have no common sense or sense of responsibility. He should call a meeting of the past stalwarts of the game and chalk out a uniform pattern of training which should be followed by all the coaches.

Besides he should appoint a selection committee which should be totally independent and none of the selectors should vie for any official position. There should be no co-opted member of the team management in team selection as this theory has failed because of the partisan attitude among our lot.

The PHF boss should see beyond men in uniform. He has seen the result that the men in uniform have produced. Enough is enough. The country cannot afford such notions any more. We have to look for the best, with credentials and credibility and standing. There is no short cut to success and it can be achieved by practising set pattern, not adhocism which has proved disastrous.

The PHF chief should take hockey as his national duty too.