IT has been a long time now since Pakistan hockey’s ails started to dominate its international results. Once the giants whose very name used to send a shudder of fear through its opponents. But now, it has been more than a decade since the green-shirts came home with any one of the three major trophies; the World Cup, the Champions Trophy and the Olympic gold. Even the services of a highly expensive foreign coach could not produce the desired results and the team, that has thrice won the Olympic gold, failed to reach even the semifinals during the 2004 Athens Olympics.
The question which is in the mind of every hockey lover of Pakistan, is what is wrong with our hockey? There are easily three major flaws that are inherent in our system of training, selection and technique which unless improved upon cannot help us retain the lost glory.
LONG TRAINING CAMPS AND LACK OF LOCAL TOURNAMENTS: In the last 20 years, it seems the importance of local tournaments has greatly diminished in the eyes of the Pakistan Hockey Federation. Instead, the PHF selects a pool of 30-40 favourites and organize long training camps throughout the year.
In the camps the players go through extremely tough individual physical training sessions in the morning. However, the only team practice the players get are structured matches between ‘Colours’ and ‘Whites’.
Such long camps hamper the development of players because they are mentally saturated by the boring routine of the camps. The creativity of a player is curtailed because through out the year he is not exposed to local competition between regions and departments.
The camp training is so energy sapping that the players are exhausted and mentally saturated even before the start of any major international tournament. The camp training also exposes players to unnecessary injuries.
It was in the golden era of the 60s, 70s and the 80s when there used to be a string of local tournaments and stars like Hasan Sardar, Hanif Khan, Islahuddin etc. developed their games whilst playing in these tournaments. Their individual brilliance was developed here, rather than in training camps.
FAULTY SELECTION PROCESS: Another fault in Pakistan’s hockey is that the selection is often done on the personal preferences rather than on merit. The formation of a Selection Committee is a useless practice as the members of the selection committee are hardly present to witness any National Tournament. Instead there is a routine to hold ‘trials’ for 2-3 days immediately after the national tournament, where a pool of 100 players are invited and display their talent in sessions of few minutes. The players may have excelled during the national tournament and at the same time may have failed to impress the selectors during the few minutes’ of the trial session. Subsequently, the selectors are left with a choice of 30-40 players with whom they familiarize themselves during camp training.
LACK OF EFFECTIVE INSIDE-RIGHT: In the Asian style of hockey, the Inside-Right is the most important player as he is the main schemer and has the advantage of the right side attack by keeping opponents on the wrong foot.
The Pakistan team had been among the top of the world hockey only when it had good inside-rights like, Abdul Hamid during the 50s and the 60s; Ashfaq during the 70s and Manzoor Jr. during the 80s.
It is unfortunate that since the departure of Manzoor Jr. there has not been a single Inside-Right in the Pakistan team of high quality and this is one of the reasons why Pakistan has fallen from the top of the world hockey in the past 20 years.
These are few of the basic faults that haunt Pakistan hockey even today and if not rectified, no amount of expensive coaching will rectify the ails.
If the PHF is really serious about reviving the glory, then it must first chalk out a string of tournaments on national basis, throughout the year and do away with the practice of long camps.
Camps of the senior team should only be of short duration before any major international tournament so that the players have enough energy saved for the tournament.
The useless ritual of holding trials after a national tournament to select players should be finished and instead players should be selected on the basis of their performance throughout the year in the local tournaments. A professional coach should be hired on long term basis and he should be given a minimum of two years to get results.
The selection committee should be removed once and for all and the coach should be responsible for the selection of his own team without any interference from the outside.
The coach should be responsible to produce a winning combination and should work to improve the attacking, scoring, midfield and defence, with special emphasis on the right side attack and developing a high quality inside right.
The need of time is that PHF should start working seriously to remove the faults in our system as without removing these faults one cannot expect any favourable results even if tax payers money is spend on any other foreign coach.
IT has been a long time now since Pakistan hockey’s ails started to dominate its international results. Once the giants whose very name used to send a shudder of fear through its opponents. But now, it has been more than a decade since the green-shirts came home with any one of the three major trophies; the World Cup, the Champions Trophy and the Olympic gold. Even the services of a highly expensive foreign coach could not produce the desired results and the team, that has thrice won the Olympic gold, failed to reach even the semifinals during the 2004 Athens Olympics.
