May 18, 2003	Sunday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 15, 1424

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KARACHI, May 17: Former Pakistan hockey captain Hanif Khan on Saturday strongly spoke against playing India, saying the team will gain technically nothing as the arch-rivals have the same style.

“If we want to play India to create harmony and peace in the region and to have good diplomatic relations, we should play them. But it will be useless to play India for the sake of enhancing our skills,” he said.

Chances of resumption of Pakistan-India hockey relations on one-to-one basis have become bright after a recent thaw in ties between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.

Pakistan and India played home-and-away series, which had become a regualr annual feature, last in 1998.

Hanif supported his contentions by saying the green shirts would not be able to sharpen their skills since both, Pakistan and India, rely on individual effort, short passes and dribbling.

“Pakistan and India are the Asian countries and have a style of their own,” the former mercurial striker said.

Although Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) and the newly- appointed manager Shahnaz Sheikh think the forthcoming tour to Australia would serve as good build-up to Champions Trophy and next year’s Athens Olympics, Hanif said it would be a waste of time and energy.

“Whether it is India or Australia, I must say it is sheer waste of time as India has Asian style like us, while the Australians play with a mixture of European and Asian styles.

“Australia play on fast pace and the Asian style dominates their game. Not only India and Australia can’t teach us what we want but South Korea and Malaysia too can’t give us technically what we need,” he said.

Pakistan are to play two three-nation tournaments in Perth and Sydney from May 29 to June 8 featuring Pakistan, India and two outfits of the hosts.

Hanif suggested matches against European sides, the world champions Germany and the Netherlands, was the only way to improve the standards of Pakistan hockey.

The former coach said it was imperative to observe the European style which includes long passes, hitting, watertight marking and defensive play as compared to attacking Asian style.

“I am not against the Asian style. We rely on wingers and we should carry on with that tactic. But what we need is to teach our players how to mark a rival player and how to get rid of the marker.

“And to learn these things our players need to have more exposure against the European outfits. They should learn how to adopt themselves against the Germans and the Dutch. And playing maximum number of games against them is the only way to success,” he remarked.