02-Jun-2012
The News
Syed Intikhab Ali
KARACHI: Former Olympians and stalwarts criticised the Pakistan hockey chiefs on Friday for the dismal performance of the national hockey team in Sultan Azlan Shah Hockey Cup, where they have so far lost three matches.
Pakistan hockey has been going downhill owing to rapid changes of coaches and players. Shahnaz Sheikh said just a few months before the London Olympics 2012 it was a shameful performance by the team in a B grade tournament. “It is an eye opener into our preparation for the mega event,” he said. “We must read the writing on the wall about what we are going to do in the mega event of London Olympics 2102. We faced only average teams in the tournament.”
He said the team management completely failed to handle the situation. “Our boys missed so many chances and ultimately the pressure came to the defense line who could not sustain,” Sheikh observed.
He added that national hockey team was being handled badly and during matches against Malaysia and India the management did not know how to tackle the situation. “They failed to cope with the pressure in a B grade tournament. How they will face hockey giants in London only God knows.”
He said it had become clear that the result this time would be no different from that in 2010 World Cup where Pakistan stood at the bottom (12th). He suggested that the Prime Minister, the patron-in-chief of PHF, should suspend all the top hierarchy of PHF, and run the affairs himself till the Olympics with the consultation of former Olympians and international players. “Otherwise there is no way to come out of the morass,” he said.
Former Olympian Qamar Ibrahim said that PHF always got angry when criticised although it was in the interest of national hockey. “We always point out those mistakes and failure that can take the team down,” he said. “The method and procedure of their planning has been exposed and the truth is that there was nothing like planning.”
Qamar said that he was surprised to hear PHF president Qasim Zia saying that Pakistan are losing because the greenshirts do not have experience of blue turf. “When Pakistan defeated Argentine 4-1 in the first match in the same tourney, were they playing with green gaggles?”
He added that the other teams are also not much experienced with the blue turf. “If Pakistani boys have no experience of the new turf, who is responsible for that? It was the responsibility of PHF,” he said.
He said that in the last hockey world cup Pakistan stood at the bottom as all hockey giants were playing. “But what happened in Malaysia, where Australia,Holland, Spain and England were not playing?” he said. “The same thing is going to happen in London.”
He said that it would have to be admitted that under the present management of PHF, national hockey team was devastated by wrong policies. “Our boys were getting training under a European coach and when he left them in the middle of the preparation, the boys played under Khwaja Junaid, now they are playing under Akhtar Rasool, who played in 1970s hockey. One can imagine the mental condition of our boys who have been thrown like a football among to different coaches,” he said.
Source: http://www.thenews.com.pk/
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