ISLAMABAD, Oct 7: Former manager Shahnaz Sheikh said on Tuesday that it was time for Pakistan hockey secretary Brig Musarratullah Khan to review his own performance and resign.

“Instead of pointing fingers at successive managers and blaming them for all the ills, it is only right that Musarrat should step down.”

Shahnaz, who led Pakistan to victory in the Azlan Shah Tournament in Malaysia this year before resigning over a controversy involving him and three other players, said hockey under Musarrat had suffered.

“Pakistan hockey has reached such a low ebb that very few people are interested in watching the sport and Musarrat should be bold enough to accept the blame for this.”

The national sport suffered a big blow in the recent Asia Cup in Kuala Lumpur where the team lost 2-4 to bitter rivals India. The defeat led to the resignation of manager Abdul Rasheed Junior after barely three months in charge. He has since been replaced by Hasan Sardar.

Although Rasheed cited personal reasons for his decision to quit, Shahnaz pointed out that he had resigned because of disappointing results. “If Rasheed was brave enough to leave, why can’t Musarrat do the same,” he asked. Musarrat was not immediately available for comment on Tuesday evening.

Shahnaz also took a swipe at team coach Tahir Zaman, with whom he worked for some nine months. “Under Tahir Pakistan have not achieved anything yet he still remains the blue-eyed boy of the federation.”

He said that the hockey bosses had spent so much on training and grooming their own coaches, but now they were planning to hire a Dutch coach. “This does not make sense to me at all. It is joke with the nation as nothing will happen and nothing will improve. It is being done by Musarrat just to protect his chair.”

The PHF is set to bring in Roelant Oltmans who will be arriving in Pakistan shortly to finalise the contractual details. He would initially be appointed till the Athens Olympics next year.