Pak: Sagging fortunes, fullstop nowhere in sight

Commonwealth Games And the Sagging Fortunes of Pakistan Hockey; Full Stop Is Nowhere in Sight

Pakistan had its worst ever position in the World Cup last March. Now the worst ever ranking in the Commonwealth Games. The situation is becoming bad to worse, and it is all but natural to ask at least one pertinent question to the power that be in Pakistan.

Did the PHF do anything different for the CWG as compared to the World Cup?

The Federation have acquired the services of the Dutch coach who had guided his native country to the third position in the World Cup early this year. He costs PHF a cool Rs 1.6 million per month. Then to the surprise of everyone, at the behest of the Dutch coach, the training camp for the preparation of the team was conducted in Holland in temperatures of around 15 degrees. The mercury in Delhi approached 40 degrees during the time of the CWG as that of Lahore. The camp cost tens of millions of rupees to the PHF.

-Practise all over the world: The manager/chief coach is selected after due thought and process. Then assistant coaches are chosen after consultation with the manager/chief coach whose preference is accorded due importance.

The PHF does it the other way round. The two assistant coaches were selected before hand and given to the Dutch chief coach. Then these two persons, Ahmad Alam and Ajmal, have neither any credentials nor seemed to be competent.

Manzoor Jr has been the manager for quite some time back, but the PHF, despite its influence in the government corridors, could not get him spared by his department. Therefore, Khawaja Junaid had to be the manager appointed a few days before the team’s departure. There is also a video analyst with the side.

What did this bevy of hockey intellectuals manage to do?

India played havoc with Pakistan’s deep defence which appeared paralysed. Instead of covering the space/zone, it seemed the defenders had been instructed to cover each other. Time and again, a single Indian pass from midfield beat the entire Pakistani defence to reach the striker in the circle, with the defenders looking at each other.

What to talk of strategy or tactics, they couldn’t even instil discipline among the lot.
In the 5th/6th position match, M.Irfan earned another dubious distinction for Pakistan, getting the first red card of the tournament, in the 58th minute. The South Africans fully cashed in on the numerical advantage: first scored to make it 2-2 thus taking the match into the golden goal period and then netted the match winner.

As before the PHF came out with lame excuses.

“The crowd pressure was too much”. “The Dutch coach of Pakistan team had already said before the departure not to expect any medal”. “There were quite a few youngsters in the team”. “Every team has an off day”. “Our target is the Asian Games”.

Was there crowd pressure against South Africa as well? The Dutch coach Michael van den Heuvel could only have given the statement on PHF’s asking so they could take the shield behind it after the failure. Pakistan was the most experienced team in the fray with the sum total of their international caps exceeding that of any other side. Every team might be having a bad day but Pakistan had two consecutive bad days. After this miserable show, can Pakistanis lift their performance within a month to such a degree as to challenge for the gold at the Asian Games?

The PHF sycophants as anticipated have also come out in support of the federation: “The old Olympians are trying to hijack Pakistan hockey. We won’t let that happen”. Is there anything

valuable left in Pakistan hockey to be hijacked?

But a couple of days back the most bizarre cover up came out. PHF secretary Asif Bajwa said the feedback he had got from the team was that the players were subjected to more abuse and insults than they used to face Indian spectators before the Mumbai terror attacks in 2008.

This seems the most ludicrous way to placate the sentiments of the disgruntled hockey lovers of the country. The scribe was there at the March World Cup in the same stadium. Of course, the crowd supported the home team as anyone would have expected but there was no such thing as abuse and insults at the Pakistani players. I have talked to a couple of returning Pakistani journalists who watched the Indo Pak match at the stadium and they also deny the Secretary’s statement.
Where to go from here?

Already there are voices for the Parliament’s standing Committee on Sports to take cognizance of the hockey affairs.

The nation has already seen the standing committee’s futile efforts to remove Ijaz Butt, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Chairman. In case of PHF, it would be even more difficult. Because both Qasim Zia, the PHF president, and Asif Bajwa, the PHF Secretary, are powerful. If Qasim Zia is the sitting member of the Punjab Assembly as well as a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Asif seems to have the support of a bigwig of the Pakistan Muslim League (N), a former Federal Minister from his home town of Sialkot.

Whom to look for the salvation of the National Game of Pakistan?

Ijaz Chaudhry writes on hockey and other sports. visit: www.sportscorrespondent.info to know more about him and his published work.

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