Fresh from the success of the 5th Asian Hockey Champions Trophy in Oman last week, the Pakistan hockey team will hold a training camp in Lahore next week for the World Cup-2018 being held in India from Nov 28 to Dec 16.

Traditional rivals Pakistan and India shared the Asian Champions Trophy after the final could not be held due to heavy rains. The joint title must have boosted the morale of the Pakistani players, who earned the achievement after five years.

In 2013, Pakistan won the third edition of this event in Japan beating the host 3-1. Since then, green shirts did not earn any big honour in the game of hockey. Before that, the last big achievement was lifting the World Cup-1994 in Sydney. Though the Asian title is not a world level title, the victory, however, will help Pakistan to exhibit some better performance in the World Cup where top world teams like Australia, Netherlands, Germany, UK, Belgium, Argentina, India, Malaysia and China will be playing.

The Pakistan Hockey Federation is likely to bring some changes to the team management after removing assistant coach Muhammad Saqlain in the Asian Champions Trophy, for developing differences with manager and head coach Hasan Sardar when a Pakistan’s crucial match against India was in progress. Olympian Danish Kaleem is likely to replace Saqlain along with Rehan Butt. Also, Olympian Tauqir Dar is likely to be appointed as assistant manager with Hasan Sardar.

Hopefully, Pakistan will maintain the same performance, which it displayed in Oman, in the World Cup. Pakistan could not qualify for the last World Cup-2014 held in Netherlands. Later on, Pakistan also failed to qualify for the Olympics Games-2016 held in Brazil. So, it is good to see Pakistan playing against top hockey nations after six years, after the last time having this opportunity in the London Olympics-2012.

It is ironic the relations between the PHF with the current federal government are not friendly. The federal government was not ready to issue funds to the PHF to prepare the team for the Asian Champions Trophy, the same situation may prevail for the World Cup. The PHF body, headed by retired Brig Sajjad Khokhar, was elected in the last tenure of the PML-N and it is the only reason that the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government has stopped funds, which is unfair. The federal government should release funds or bring their own trusted people to the body. No one has the right to play with the national game.

Like hockey, the Pakistan cricket team also made the nation happy as it earned a consecutive 11th wins in T20 matches when it toppled New Zealand in the second of three T20 matches series by six wickets in Dubai this week.

Earlier, Pakistan also defeated Australia in both Test and T20 matches series in the UAE. Pakistan are already at No one in the World Ranking in this format, which is a good sign. In fact, the Pakistan cricket team has been doing good for the last couple of years; it won the Champions Trophy in England and later on played a draw Test series against England. Its performance, however, was questionable in the last Asia One-day Cup, also held in the UAE, where Pakistan could not even play the Super Four stage, which India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and even minnows Afghanistan qualified for easily.

Published in Dawn, November 4th, 2018