THERE is a common conception about our hockey that it has rarely produced penalty corner executors that have the ability to convert the chances into goals. And it is not wrong altogether.
Except for Tanveer Dar, of the age when hockey was played on grass field, Pakistan, before the emergence of Khalid Basheer and Sohail Abbas, had no penalty corner specialist in three decades.
The conversion ratio of Muwaruz Zaman and Qasim Zia is too low to include them in the list of penalty corner specialists. The situation did not seem hopeful after Sohail Abbas, who is 26 and has a maximum of four years of game left in him.
However, the recently concluded 50th National Championship, which also brought with it a strong hope of revival of the game of hockey in the country, has given a clue that some penalty corner specialists are in the making.
As far as Sohail Abbas is concerned, he is an exception.
Sohail, whose international goals count has reached 184, has all the chances of breaking the record of scoring maximum goals on penalty corner shots of Holland’s Paul Ligent, provided he gets 50 to 70 more games.
Imran Ahmed of the Army and Imran Warsi of National Bank of Pakistan can be termed the finds of the championship.
The two ‘Is’ have all the abilities and skills to prevent the drought hitting national hockey after Sohail Abbas, as far as the position of penalty corner shooters is concerned.
Imran Ahmed, who is a member of Pakistan’s junior squad, scored 8 goals on penalty corner shots for Pakistan Army.
Imran Warsi converted eight penalty corner shots into goals for the National Bank.
Besides these finds, the championship was one of the finest ever held.
It offered the highest prize money, as Rs75,000 was given to the winners, Rs50,000 to the runners-up and Rs5,000 to the man of each match. The man of the tournament, Sohail Abbas, took with him a Suzuki Mehran.
Such prizes had never been offered before in hockey on the national level. Certainly, this move will encourage youth to play their national game.
The biggest positive outcome of the tournament was the announcement of Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Jamali lifting the ban on recruitment on sports quota in banks and government and semi-government institutions.
The decision of the prime minister, who was the chief guest at the final, was applauded not only by the thousands of spectators present at the UBL Sports Complex, Karachi, but also the national print media, which highlighted his announcement.
The ban, which was imposed a decade ago, spoiled the careers of many sportsmen, who in the absence of proper finances, could not turn into international stars, although they possessed all the required qualities, except money, to continue playing.
The announcement would go a long way, specially in reviving hockey in the country as its players were the worst affected of the ban.
Unlike the cricketers who can play county or league, hockey players have rare opportunities to play professional hockey abroad.
THERE is a common conception about our hockey that it has rarely produced penalty corner executors that have the ability to convert the chances into goals. And it is not wrong altogether.
