KARACHI, April 18 Fifteen days of an exciting competition between 10 departmental hockey teams reached its climax on Sunday as Wapda's captain Sohail Abbas lifted the winner's trophy at the Hockey Club of Pakistan.
The 57th National Hockey Championship which was played on a new league format this year with a nine-match quota for each team saw Wapda reaching the top of the table with 24 points. Although both banks — National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) and Habib Bank Limited (HBL) — had 19 points each to their name, NBP was named runners-up by virtue of better goal average. NBP captain Zeeshan Ashraf accepted the runner-up trophy.
Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) were fourth with 17 points and Army fifth with 16 followed by Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) and Port Qasim Authority (PQA) ending up sixth and seventh, respectively, with 10 points each.
Navy with seven points ended up eighth, Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) ninth with four points and Pakistan Air Force (PAF) 10th and at the bottom with three points after drawing three matches and winning none.
PAF and KESC will now have to play in the tray championship in order to prove themselves worthy of participating in next year's national championship. Only the top two teams in the tray championship get to feature in the national championships each year.
The last day of competition saw Wapda beating SSGC 4-1. Though SSGC drew first blood when Abbas Haider scored in the 35th minute, Wapda's Sohail Abbas restored parity by utilising a penalty stroke given to them in the 40th minute. The remaining three goals came through Waqas Sharif (42nd min), Asif Michal (52nd min) and Rehan Butt (67th min).
In the second match, Army edged past PQA 3-2. Waqas Junior (20th min), Kashif Ali (42nd min) and Shahid Rao (67th min) scored for Army whereas Malik Shakeel Ahmed (eighth min) and Samiullah (61st min) scored for PQA.
Finally, the thrilling encounter between NBP and PIA that saw all the goals scored through brilliant individual attempts ended in a 2-2 draw. Mohammad Taufeeq (10th min) and Tariq Aziz (65th min) scored for NBP while Shafqat Rasool and (42nd min) and M. Zubair (53rd min) scored for PIA.
Sindh Minister for Sports Dr Mohammad Ali Shah, the chief guest on the occasion, and Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) Secretary Asif Bajwa gave away the prizes. Apart from the winners' trophies, the federation also awarded Fair Play trophies to Army and HBL.
“We had to give away two Fair Play trophies this year as both these sides displayed an exemplary show of sportsmanship spirit during the event,” said Tournament Director Olympian Iftikhar Syed.
The individual prizes went to HBL's Imran Shah (best goalkeeper and best player of the tournament), NBP's Mohammad Ateeq (highest goal scorer) and HBL's Mubashir Mukhtar (best coach).
