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KARACHI: The Friendship Hockey Series with China gave birth to new hopes of a patch-up between the estranged Olympians and the Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) top brass when former greats Islahuddin Siddiqui and Qasim Zia embraced each other in a bid to set aside their differences for the betterment of the national sport.
There were loud cheers and claps all around as soon as it was announced on the ground’s public address system that Olympians Islah, Ayaz Mahmood, Qamar Ibrahim and several internationals had arrived at the stadium.
And when Pakistan was leading China 3-0, the small crowd witnessed the PHF President Qasim Zia, Secretary Asif Bajwa, Chief Selector Hanif Khan, Hasan Sardar and Rana Mujahid coming down to invite the legends of the game to join them.
Islah and some of the other hockey greats reciprocated to the gesture and watched the remaining match from the VIP stand alongside the PHF officials.
Later, they also shared some valuable tips for the team’s betterment with the PHF officials.
“I am always there when needed for any advice on hockey because I am what I am because of this game. I will never take for granted the respect I have earned through this sport,” said Islah.
Meanwhile, in an unpleasant incident, former captain Islah, being an ‘A’ grade commentator who has had the honour of covering many international matches, was on assignment from PTV to do the match commentary on Wednesday but was denied at the last minute from doing so.
“I was so happy to see the revival of international hockey in Pakistan, I wanted to take this chance to appreciate the PHF’s efforts in making it possible. I always do my homework and had already worked at the pronunciations of the Chinese players’ names, too. But I was informed by the PTV officials that the federation would disallow the match from being aired live on the channel if I and my fellow commentator and expert did the match commentary,” informed Islah. “I immediately withdrew so that the nation is able to watch the match live on TV.”
In the end, the job was done by PHF’s favoured commentators Samsam Qadir and Danish Kaleem. Islah, however, did let the PHF President Qasim Zia know about his annoyance over the incident.
Qasim Zia apologised and said he wasn’t even aware of this and there had been some kind of misunderstanding.
“I am very hurt. I could have left in a huff over the issue but I didn’t want to embarrass anyone,” said Islah. When Qasim, Bajwa and Rana came to invite me after apologising about the whole thing, I, too, decided to let it go.”
