March 06, 2007	Tuesday	Safar 16, 1428

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)

KARACHI, March 5: Pakistan under-18 squad began its final phase of training on Monday at the Hockey Club of Pakistan under inexperienced and indisciplined former Olympians as coaches for Kenya and Egypt tours.

Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) has continued its patronage of indisciplined former Pakistan players by deputing hot-headed Danish Kaleem as coach along with inexperienced former centre-forward Kamran Ashraf.

The decision by PHF to depute such individuals is incomprehensible as Danish was embroiled in an ugly incident only a couple of years ago. Acting as a Pakistan Customs coach in a match against Habib Bank in Karachi, Danish crossed his limits when he yelled and hurled abuses at umpire Chowdhry Tanveer on a decision while sitting on the bench.

He was later admonished by the then director domestic hockey PHF, Muhammad Shafiq following which Tanveer removed Danish from the bench brandishing a yellow card.

It was not an isolated incident of misconduct by the coach as Danish along with Customs teammates Farhat Khan and Mohammad Ali has always been in the limelight for threatening and using abusive language against umpires during local tournaments.

Danish has not only been a controversial personality, he is also an odd choice for coaching assignment because of lack of experience. The Kenya and Egypt tours will be the only second assignment for Danish who became the national coach for the first time last year when he accompanied Pakistan Whites at the South Asian Games in Colombo.

Also, it is hard to fathom how an individual like Danish would inspire rookie youngsters to become future stars since he himself has attitude problems and does not have an impressive career to show since he mostly played as a reserve full-back for the national team.

As for Kamran, although he was one of the key Pakistan players during the 1990s, he is certainly too raw to be assigned the job with an under-18 side. The forthcoming tours are the first-ever assignments for the former spearhead who quit international hockey only almost four years ago.

Earlier, PHF had also appointed Farhat and former Pakistan goalkeeper Ahmad Alam for a training camp in Karachi as part of what it describes as ‘talent hunt scheme’. Both Farhat and Ahmad have a history of hatching conspiracies and indiscipline on and off the field.

Even a layman knows that while senior side doesn’t need much tutoring since most of the players are already moulded, it is the youth squads with budding youngsters that are in need of having sober elements around them as coaches with blemish-free records.

While Danish was absent from the camp for unknown reasons and manager-cum-camp commandant Jahangir Butt mostly sat on the sidelines, physical trainer Irshad Haider was seen in the field while Kamran was supervising the drills.