Humiliating, horrible and demoralizing. That is how one can describe Pakistan hockey team’s recent tour Down Under where they finished at ‘fourth’ in the two tri-nation tournaments ‘another feather in the officials’ cap.
The hockey buffs are shell-shocked at the ignominious show lately, but the hockey Tsars, as usual, have come with their bizarre, rather lame excuses to cover up the mess they have created during the past three years.
Pakistan, once the most feared side, a nightmare for the Europeans, finished their campaign like they had started. They lost all the games, managed a draw with India, and won a single match that is too against Australia ‘A’.
An analysis of both the tournaments shows it is only the inconsistency in which the team was consistent. And it is being quite a long time that team is giving contrasting results.
Team manager Shahnaz Sheikh before being elevated as manager had pointed out inconsistency as the major grey area, soon after taking charge as coach. According to him, it was all because of lack of motivation that the team failed to give results consistently before he took charge.
Unfortunately he himself, it seems, has failed to instil confidence and motivation into the players if one takes the outcome of the tour into consideration.
Surprisingly, Shahnaz, who made tall claims before the two contests, has now come up with a face-saving effort by saying a winning combination could not be made overnight.
True, it takes years to build world beaters, but it would have been better had Shahnaz said this before going to Australia rather than claim to win the tournaments even without three key players.
Shahnaz, who had said absence of three senior players makes no difference, has now contradicted himself when he gave non-availability of the seniors as the reason for thrashing.
To an utter surprise, the PHF bigwigs and team manager are trying to cash in on the absence of Mohammad Nadeem, Sohail Abbas and Waseem Ahmad. Nadeem was suspended for the tour as a penalty for playing in professional league abroad, while the other two did not bother to report for the training camp.
The fact is striker that Tariq Aziz was the only player who made his international debut. Adnan Maqsood, Shakeel Abbasi, Aqeel Khan were rookies but not debutantes. It was not the matter of choice for the PHF. Rather it was the case of beggars who can’t be choosers.
The PHF takes pride in saying it has injected fresh blood as future investment and did infuse some young blood into the squad only after being compelled to do so given the fact the three senior players were not available for the tour.
If one analyses the causes of the miserable showing it certainly was a foregone conclusion. The kind of damage, the PHF has inflicted upon the sport, has no immediate remedy.
It all started after last year’s World Cup in Kuala Lumpur where team finished a poor fifth. It was then, the PHF should have sent some five or six seniors home for good to be replaced by youngsters to prepare Athens Olympic squad.
Instead, the insatiable lust for a major title forced the top but inept PHF officials to keep faith on the aging seniors like Ahmad Alam, Mohammad Sarwar, Mohammad Nadeem, Mohammad Saqlain and Tariq Imran.
The PHF not only retained old hats, but also recalled Ahmad who took an amazing U-turn by coming out of retirement. The PHF gave a call-up to Kamran Ashraf too who, after a disastrous season last year, hanged his boots to ‘pave way for a youngster’.
Now the PHF is paying for its follies committed one-and-a-half years ago. How inexperienced youngsters can deliver all of a sudden while they have little or no exposure?
While the juniors fared badly but gained exposure, seasoned Ahmad’s pathetic performance has not only proved PHF wrong but also exposed the goalkeeper who should not have been recalled.
To add another folly, PHF has planned to give ‘specialized physical training’ to the probables for about a week at Army School of Mountain Warfare in Abbottabad for the Champions Trophy before shifting the camp to Karachi.
One wonders whether PHF is trying to prepare players for hockey matches or recruits for a commando operation in Siachen Glacier. PHF, perhaps, has no clue what will be the effect on the players who will move from cool mountainous area to the scorching heat in Karachi.
The secretary is considered the key office of any sports federation and the PHF is no exception. It is because of strange ways and policies adopted by the PHF secretary, Brig Musarratullah Khan, that the sport is being ruined.
Musarrat never gets tired of pointing out that it is due to damaging policies of the previous PHF officials that hockey is suffering. But surprisingly all the previous officials are still allies of the PHF.
Brig Manzoor Hussain Atif, Col Mudassar Asghar and Akhtar Rasool, all have served the PHF in the past.
If Musarrat feels the previous officials had damaged the game why he nominated Atif for International Hockey Federation (FIH) executive board’s membership? Why PHF is celebrating Atif’s 50 years in hockey? Why Col Mudassar was nominated by the PHF for FIH event and competition committee and Akhtar was installed as chief selector?
Can the PHF enlighten the followers of the game why those who have damaged hockey in the past are being promoted? PHF may like to keep mum, but in fact all are being obliged to prevent them from criticizing PHF’s wrongdoings.
