August 19, 2008	Tuesday	Sha’aban 16, 1429

BEIJING, Aug 18: Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) secretary Asif Bajwa said here on Monday that besides players the team management should also take the blame for Pakistan’s failure to qualify for the Olympic hockey semi-finals.

Bajwa said in an interview while recording his reaction on national team’s failure that there was a need to revive Pakistan hockey on emergency basis.

“I am absolutely disappointed with the performance of Pakistan team. They failed to deliver in any department of the game,” he said.

“The side was just a bunch of individuals and they badly failed to play as a team. This was the main reason for their downfall,” he added and blamed senior players Rehan Butt, Shakeel Abbasi, Adnan Maqsood, Mohammad Saqlain and Salman Akbar, all failing to come up to the mark.

“They all are experienced players but failed to impress despite playing their second Olympics,” he said adding that when seniors were not performing and scoring goals what could the juniors do.

Bajwa pointed out that it was the ability to score goals which mattered and not the speed, dribbling or individual excellence.

“Individual excellence is nothing in a team game. The PHF fully facilitated the players but the end result was disappointing,” former Olympian observed who took charge of the PHF secretaryship in June.

He emphasised that it was the time for a new vision, vigour and complete overhauling of hockey structure to achieve new objectives.

He said he would personally be looking for a fresh approach and new ideas in hockey.

Bajwa said he completely favoured the idea of bringing a foreign coach but he would discuss the matter with PHF office-bearers and experts first.

“We will go back and review our performance in the Olympics and try to figure out where we made mistakes,” he said.

The secretary said he thought that Pakistan never recovered from the bad start after losing against Great Britain.—APP